Friday 26 June 2015

Here's to love!

So I'm not an American, but I'm thrilled at the SCOTUS decision that was handed down today! I live in a country where marriage equality has been the law of the land for over a decade, and I truly believe we are far better for it as a people. I'm excited that the minds and hearts of my neighbours to the south are opening up and more people are seeing that love doesn't have to conform to one single pattern in order to be legitimate and beautiful. So, in honour of the ruling, here's a snippet about love:

From Arcadian's Balm:

Tomis let the door slam behind him. When he saw Gevaril sitting by the fire pit, he felt his fists clench.
The curly-haired man regarded him calmly, cocking his head as if he were simply curious.
Pain swelled in Tomis’s chest, a writhing, pulsing ball of hurt and humiliation that went back six long, painful years. His eyes stung. His throat grew tight.
Gevaril rose in a graceful movement. He opened his hands, palms up. “Have at ‘er, Red.” He stepped forward. “Fuck me or throw that punch you been wanting to throw. I’ll take either.”
Even as he felt his arm lift, Tomis knew which one he’d chosen. He grabbed the other man’s shoulder roughly, staring into those piercing blue eyes he’d once believed held every good thing in life.
The corner of Gevaril’s finely-formed mouth quirked in that arrogant way it always had. Tears blurring his vision, Tomis shoved his former lover backward and felt himself drop to his knees. He curled against the pain in his belly, though it was nothing compared to the pain that went deeper.
How could he do it? How could he love someone who had torn his heart out?
Strong-fingered hands traced over his wet face. Tomis trembled as calloused thumbs brushed the tears from beneath his eyes.
“We can get past this,” Gevaril murmured. “Truly, love, we can. It’s all still here, everything we’ve always felt, everything we wanted… it’s all still here. We can get it back.”
Tomis shook his head violently, feeling his queue smack against his shoulder. “It won’t be the same.”
Gevaril cupped Tomis’s face and delicately touched their foreheads together. “It won’t. But it can be good. Really good. I promise. Please, Red, we need to try. Let me show you I… please….”
Though his self-preservation instincts screamed for him to run, Tomis didn’t move. He couldn’t. He felt Gevaril’s tender touch burn into his skin as he breathed in his minty breath. Every nerve in his body was shimmering, fiercely attuned to his old lover.
He tried one more time. “F-fuck you.”
Gevaril’s lips pressed gently over his. “If you like. I seem to remember you enjoying it the other way, though.”
He was right, of course. Tomis loved getting fucked. He especially loved getting fucked by Gevaril, whose cock fit his ass with a sublime perfection he’d never felt before or after.
His cock was rock-hard, his loins on fire. Tomis realized that he was clutching at Gevaril’s arms. There was really nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do.
With a sob of surrender, he lunged forward against the man who had always held his heart, opening his mouth, sucking hard on the bigger man’s tongue. The sleek texture was everything he remembered.
“Red… oh, my Red….” Gevaril nipped at Tomis’s jaw before unerringly finding the cord in his neck where the right pressure could make him half mad.
Groaning, Tomis laced his fingers through his lover’s curls. Gev.
Somewhere in the haze of passion, he realized that Gevaril had scrambled up and was yanking him to his feet as well. Tomis obeyed without question, lacing his arms around the stronger man’s neck and letting Gevaril grasp and lift his thighs. He wrapped his legs tightly round his lover’s waist, moaning in pleasure at the feel of their hard cocks pressed together, even though the fabric of their clothing was still between them.
For the first time in six years, Tomis was carried to bed.

Sunday 21 June 2015

All About that Bass

So this is going to be a total departure from what I usually blog about. I'm not much for talking about my personal life on a writer blog... yeah, I know y'all are mostly on here just to see the dirty little snippets from my stories that I put up, but I think this is too important to ignore.

I've been quiet for a bit, and I'll explain why. The easiest thing would just be to say "health issues", and it's the truth, but I'm going to give more detail. It cumulated in me having to undergo testing for colon cancer.

Everything is about the ass right now. Anal is the new oral in erotic romance. And in real life. So many people are trying it. Many of them really like it. Celebrities get famous for having large, luscious bottoms. Butts are memorialized in pop songs. It's all about the sexual function of the ass, but the thing is, we have to remember that there's more to our permanent vertical smiles than sex. We live or die based on how healthfully things move through there.

Yeah, I'm talking about the original function of asses now. Seriously not sexy. I'd been noticing that I was getting progressively weaker, my appetite was fading (REALLY weird for me), and my digestion was very off. I'd always thought I was vigilant about my bowels, because I've lost family members to colon cancer before, and I know I"m at risk for it. Weirdly enough, when I started to experience warning signs, I initially ignored them. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. But it got to the point where I couldn't ignore it. I was spending sixteen hours a day asleep, and the other eight curled in the fetal position, moaning in pain and clutching my belly. My life ground to a halt. I couldn't work. Sex (either by myself or with anyone else) was out of the question.

So I went to the doctor, and I had to tell him that I, a person at risk for colon cancer, had been ignoring the fact that there was blood in the toilet after I moved my bowels. After he gave me a stern lecture about not ignoring serious symptoms, we began the testing process. Some bits were so disgusting I can't bring myself to discuss them. As soon as the first results were in, I got booked with the surgeon for the dreaded colonoscopy.

Very few people who are in their thirties expect that they'll need a camera shoved up their ass. I don't imagine that anyone looks forward to it. But as the days dragged by, I found myself wishing time to go faster, so I could get it done. I knew I was sick, but I wanted to know exactly how sick, so I could figure out what to do about it. I was actually eager to get started on the prep, which is pretty much two days of clear liquids and very strong laxatives. Those were probably the two longest days of my life. I staggered back and forth between my bed and the bathroom, never catching more than an hour or two of sleep at a time because once you've taken laxatives you really don't trust yourself to relax all that much.

As I'd been sick for a while anyhow, the preparation was really hard on my body. My darling dad came to town to take care of me, and he had to push me through the hospital in a wheelchair because I was too weak to walk. Then I went into shock when they put the IV in. So I to spend a few hours laying there in pre-op, getting fluids and waiting for my blood pressure to stabilize before I could go in.

By that point, I was utterly convinced I had cancer. I started composing good-bye letters in my head to give to the people I love the most. I sorrowed for the fact that I wouldn't be able to finish the Wildlands series. My brain worked through every mistake I'd ever made, every regret I ever had, and I started to mourn the fact that my life was ending after only 34 years.

When I finally went into the operating room, the doctor asked me if I had any questions, and I asked him how long I would live with cancer. He didn't answer; just told the nurse to give me the sedative. I drifted off lying on my side, as someone was opening the back of my gown so they could insert a six-foot hose into my butt. I remember offering to slip them a fifty if they would grease it well.

When I woke up, the surgeon was standing there, smiling at me. My colon was perfectly normal, except for the fact that I apparently don't eat enough fibre. The GI specialist was called, and after one simple conversation and a look at my medical records, she concluded that my pain and weakness was a reaction to a medication I'd started a few months back, that was apparently doing a number on my digestive system and severely straining my liver.

So I don't have cancer. My dramatic mental preparations for death seem rather silly now. I stopped the drug, and my system is slowly healing. I'm still tired and weak, but I'm sleeping only about 12 hours a day now, and I'm hoping to be able to go back to my 'day' job within another month. The mind fog is clearing, and I've started to write again.

You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all of this. The first reason is as a public service announcement. Colon cancer is a silent, brutal killer. I've watched some of the people I've loved most in the world succomb to it, because the symptoms usually don't show up until it's progressed to the point where it could be too late. And even then, they may have ignored the symptoms out of fear. So if you're over 40, or if you have family history, don't die of embarassment. Talk to your doctor about screening. When it's caught in the early stages, it's not a death sentence. My granddad lived 40 years after his first bout.

The second reason I'm talking about it is that this whole experience has given me a strange new relationship with my body. I underwent some incredibly invasive, humiliating medical procedures, which was something I'd never done before. Having never given birth, I haven't had much cause to have doctors 'down there', except for that quick yearly exam that we all pretend isn't happening. But being probed inside and out has somehow made me more comfortable with my body, with who I am as a person and my place on this earth. It brought me to a new acceptance of the reality of my body, imperfect as it may be. It's mine. It's me.

I've had some weird, freaky sex (not as wild as my characters, but wild enough). I consented to having my body touched in those ways for pleasure. It's a different thing to have people (especially strangers rather than someone you care about and trust) touching you when it feels absolutely horrible, and you know no pleasure is forthcoming. I've never been a fan of pain for pain's sake. But I accepted it, endured it, almost welcomed it, because there was a higher purpose. I wanted to stay alive. So I've come to find a new appreciation for the less comfortable, pleasurable things in life, because the fact remains, I like life. As I try to regain my strength, I've done some simple workouts. After a few months of hardly moving, it hurts like a sonofabitch. But I welcome the pain because I know it's necessary. A bowl of oat bran in the mornings isn't as tasty as a sausage-egg sandwich. But it will help me stay alive longer, make my body work better, and in the long run, I guess that makes it all worth it.