Chapter One: Runaway
There was no point in trying to take in the scenery from a steam coach. The carriage rattled along in a shroud of smoke at high speed, but very low comfort. Each passenger fought his own private battle with motion sickness. The window seats were given to those who lost.
Continue reading New Serial! “Chocolatiers of the High Winds” by H B Kurtzwilde: Chapter 1
Tales from the Arena: Playing For Keeps
$6.99 ebook
ISBN 978-1-61390-193-9
269 pages
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Rakesh is one of the most skilled of the Collared, the men and women who serve in the Arena to fulfill the unique needs of the super-soldiers known as Swords.
The Swords were genetically altered to be strong, fast, tough, and deadly. But if they don’t exercise their aggression regularly, they become a danger to those around them. At the Arena, the Collareds accept what the Swords dish out, whether pleasure or pain.
Virin, a mid-ranking sword, takes Rakesh as his lover and hopes to rise high enough in rank that they may marry. But a storm is brewing. Former Collareds are disappearing, victims of a dark conspiracy of renegade soldiers that conspires to utterly control the nation of Tyrese and destroy all who oppose them. And they have their eyes on Rakesh.
“Elizabeth Schechter fuses diverse genres with such artful subtlety that we barely notice the genius at work before our eyes. Schechter is not only an engaging storyteller, but a perceptive and intelligent observer of the human condition. (Can we say icing on an already tasty cake?)” — Erotica for the Big Brain
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Volume four of our fairy tale bundle is Like a Prince, a collection of gay male erotic fairy tales. Our excerpt is from “The Goose Boy” by Monique Poirier:
…There was a man standing in the corner, watching him. Watching him very intently.
He was dressed in the clothes of a merchant, and he wore a long cloak with a hood. Giles could see his eyes flashing from within the shadows of it, warmly brown and uncomfortably direct. When they met his own, the hooded man grinned with a flash of white teeth. Giles looked into his cup studiously.
He approached. Giles held his ground; the warning had been brief and maddeningly cryptic, but he wasn’t the sort of man who ran away. The hooded man sat down on the bench beside him, very close. Close enough that Giles could feel the heat of him.
“I’m told that you can’t speak,” the man said. His voice was smooth and clear; a young man’s voice – one that demanded attention. Giles shook his head slightly without looking up.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
At that Giles did look up, scowling slightly, sighing through his nose. The man who stared back at him was… arresting. The face of an angel gazed at him from the shadows of that hood, framed in dark curls. He’d never seen an angel, painted or otherwise, with so much hunger in its eyes.Giles shuddered, because the intense scrutiny he suddenly faced stirred something low in his belly that was probably best left undisturbed…
The fifth and final volume of the Wired Hard series appeared in 2013 and was edited by Joy Crelin.
Our excerpt is from The Amnesiaphiliac by Benji Bright.
It started with a single man and spun so far out that no one could have planned it, could have wanted it to go so wrong. My name is Nathaniel Underwood, and if you’re reading this then that’s good. That means you know how to read, and that’s a good sign. There’s no way for me to know whether you acquired the skill to parse this text from the act of picking it up or if you came to it already able. That’s how bad things got. So bad that I had to imbue each word with a desperation to be understood. I can’t rely on memory, it’s like a shifting sand that tilts everything standing above it. So understand these words and make of them what you will. I’ll try to keep this brief.
Apsis is our revolving city. When the first of the terrible earthquakes rocked the area, our engineers and best logicians decided that it would be best to unroot it. The girders were removed and the city floated away, tethered to the earth only by its memory of once being shackled. So we watched from the sky as the ground trembled and spat dust, thinking how lucky we were to have escaped such a miserable fate. And we were miserable too, having willfully divorced our home, but the human capacity for misery stretches only so far. We moved on in part because Apsis moved on. As the city drifted away from the site of our untethering, we could no longer see the scars of the earth, and we started forgetting what it had been like to dwell on land.
For Volume 4, Cecilia shared editorial duties with Lauren Burka. It features an introduction by writer Xan West, and the first appearance of female names in the TOC.
This excerpt is from The Succession of Knoorikios Khnum, by Zachary Jernigan:
Tonight I will get what I want, surely.
In anticipation, I perfume my loins. I dress, sans underwear. I drink a cocktail of aphrodisiacs and insert an oil suppository laced with nerve stimulants. I shave my testicles and legs. As I walk to the Ambassador’s Gala, I am turned on by the hypersensitive skin of my thighs rubbing together, the bounce of my hairless balls against them, the head of my cock brushing softly against my silk pants, the tight oiled skin of my anus compressed and tingling between my legs. The dusk breezes are warm and dry, filled with the sweet scents of the court gardens. Gooseflies, fat with spring nectar, buzz barely aloft in the fig trees.
I arrive late. The court is a riot of color and sound, hectic with dignitaries local and foreign, human and animal and alien. I am recognized and hailed by voice, olfactory chemical and touch. I wave politely and move on, mumbling excuses. My attention is elsewhere. I have a mission. Despite the temptation to excuse myself, to find a chamber to pleasure myself (yes, I am one great erogenous zone by now), I will not be distracted.
I have waited two years. I can wait a bit longer.
Wired Hard 3 was the first volume of the series to come out in the 21st century.
Today’ excerpt is from Zoner, by Michael Barnette:
“You have a visitor, sir,” the voice of the front desk security officer said. “Your, visuals are out, is there a problem, sir?”
“No, no problem. I’m not dressed for a pubic appearance. You understand.”
There was a slight pause, then the guard replied, “Of course, sir.”
Jessman wondered what the man was thinking then. If the person he’d requested was all he had been led to believe he or she was…well then maybe the guard was jealous. Or maybe not.
“Do I let him in or not, sir?”
Him. A man then. He shivered a bit in anticipation. Jessman hadn’t been with another man in a good many months, not since before his arrival at NeuroTech, and the thought of another man sent a thrill of eagerness through him.
The second volume of the Wired Hard series came out in 1997 and included stories from writers who went on to become Circlet stalwarts such as M. Christian, Eric Del Carlo, and David Laurents.
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Today’s excerpt is from “The Hetarai Turncoat” by Karl-Rene Moore. Fun fact: surprisingly few Circlet stories feature sex with aliens. This is one of the exceptions to that rule:
Dieter’s body gleamed with a steaming mixture of sweat and sauna condensation as he emerged, balls bouncing low in his scrotum against the taut, defined adductor muscles in his thighs, surmounted by his semi-erect fock … which immediately began to salute me when Dieter noticed me standing near the sauna door, bottle of spiced oil in one hand, and his favorite carved jade cock ring in the other.
Pausing in the doorway, so that the steam rose off his powerful shoulders and bulging, smoothly rounded pectoralis majors, and briefly screened his blunt, yet archly refined features, so that only his icy blue-grey eyes shone through clearly … and there was a certain look in those glacial orbs that warned: The usual won’t be enough tonight, Gustav. Not enough at all …
The first volume of the Wired Hard series was published in 1994–literally a lifetime ago for some of the people reading this now. If you’re interested in the context in which editor Cecilia Tan decided to publish an anthology of gritty gay male SF (and how those factors are relevant today), you can read her introduction to the bundle. And if you’re just here for for the smut, stick around!
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Here’s an excerpt from “Jungle of Vampire Lust” by Lee Liges:
Blackness smothers, engulfing me, my senses gasp. Burning, scalds my veins, flowing to pricks of painful pleasure. Muscles tense, draw tight. Searching.
Strung like a bow, I display my blood-rushing erection, towering above. Searing heat and pressure grip vice-like on my hard spear of flesh. Mute screams tear from my throat at the unbearable tension produced in my body. Rhythmic pressure, pleasure turns to pounding waves of ecstasy. Bellows of rapture from my paralyzed vocal chords.
The black shroud envelopes me, again.
This is the fifth and final day of our series of juicy excerpts from the five volumes of our giant Gay Romance Bundle.
Charming, edited by Jen Levine and Rian Darcy, is a collection of eight modern gay fairy tales. Our excerpt is the first third or so of Nightingale by Evey Brett:
The Emperor of Jazz always played as if death were on his heels, but it was I, Night, who became death’s accompanist.
During our gigs Emp’s fingers traveled up and down the piano keys, pulling out impossible chords and intricate riffs no other man alive could. I kept pace on my tenor saxophone, and together we had the musical world at our feet.
At night, our musical intimacy turned physical. Those fingers played my body the way they did the piano, tickling the insides of my thighs, stopping to stroke the length of my cock and teasing me until I begged him to let me come.
Every day this week we’re posting a long, sexy excerpt from one of the books in the Gay Romance Bundle. Today’s is Leather Spirit Stallion by Raven Kaldera.
This is the first chapter, in which we meet Erlik, a Mongolian-tradition shaman, college student and gay leather top, and get to see him pursue his social life.
The boots, as he pulled them on, were new to his feet, although not new themselves. They were military tanker’s boots, black leather with buckles. He had scammed them off of Chaz, who had money and was continually buying fancy pieces of black leather and then getting bored with them. The pants, too, were black leather, found in the local Salvation Army a year ago. The belt had been his older brother’s until he had stolen it, just before leaving his parents’ house forever.
Aside from that, the rest of his clothing didn’t resemble anything that someone might wear to a fetish bar. Over a simple sleeveless black T-shirt he shrugged on and tied his black silk del, the traditional Mongolian coat with fur trim. He had stitched it himself, scavenging the fur from an abandoned coat in the trash, learning to embroider the traditional patterns onto it. Unlike his ceremonial del, which was a feast of bright colors, the black del was more demure with embroidery only in indigo and white. The running horse tracked across his sleeves, his spirit animal in silver-gray. The broad silk sash of cobalt blue went around his waist and tied, then he buckled the leather belt around it. He picked up his sheath knife and hesitated for a moment, then tucked it into his boot. Wearing it at the waist was more traditional, but discreet was better; he didn’t want it confiscated by a bouncer. He picked up his handmade horsehair whip and fastened that to his belt instead. Read that message, boys.
Continue reading Gay Romance Bundle Teasers #4: Leather Spirit Stallion