Soft limits, hard limits, personal boundaries, personal fears. It doesn’t matter if we’re kinky or vanilla, every single one of us has things that we’re comfortable and not comfortable doing sexually; lines that we don’t want crossed, things that we adore doing. And it’s most certainly the case that one person’s ‘hell no!’ is another person’s ‘hell yes!’ That’s a good thing. If we were all the same, life and sex would be terribly boring. What intrigues me, however, is how our comfort levels and perceptions of what we do and don’t like, can and can’t tolerate, can – and often do – change over time.

Now, before I go any further with this train of thought, I’d just like to make it really, really clear that hard limits should always, ALWAYS be respected. No exceptions. They are not there to be pushed. They are not there to be ‘broken though’. A hard limit is a prohibition, a definite no-no. End of story. And a hard limit remains so until such time as the person whose limit it is chooses of their own volition and without coercion for it not to be.

Public service announcement out of the way, let’s continue.

One of things that I am coming to realise the longer I explore my sexuality is that the devil is very much in the detail. And the gulf between the aforementioned ‘hell yes!’ and my safeword is actually much wider than I originally thought. Not because I’ve been sloppy in articulating what I’m okay with and what I’m not or because I’m getting kinkier (I don’t think I am) but because identifying the things that arouse is a bit like going off to explore the jungle. You take your map with you and it defines the terrain you’re going to cover, but the route you follow to your destination often ends up revealing a multitude of alternate trails and tracks that you just have to go back and explore. And on occasion, those offshoots lead you to places you originally sought to avoid.

Some time back, I discovered that I had an aversion to prickly sensations, thanks to that devilish little device, the Wartenberg Wheel. This instrument isn’t a hard limit for me but holy crap is it something to be endured. For whatever reason, my mind has no problem with the pain generated by the sting of a crop, but it cannot seem to climb on top of the sensation a Wartenberg elicits, even when used very, very lightly. It’ll come as no surprise, then, that my experiences with it led me to believe that sharp things, other than that barely tolerated little terror tool, belonged on my hard limit list. (You should see the performance when I get a splinter and M has to hook it out for me with a needle. You’d think he was hacking my foot off with a rusty axe.)

Then I read something the other week that made me think I need to re-examine my feelings. It was an intensely erotic edgeplay scene from Cherise Sinclair’s latest book Edge of the Enforcer between a sadist named deVries and a non-masochistic sub. In a nutshell, said sadist restrains said sub on a kitchen counter using her half-removed jeans, throws a tea towel over her eyes, and then proceeds to utilise the knives in the butcher’s block for something other than cooking.

“I like being called Sir. Master works once in a while.”

“Sir, you wouldn’t really–”

“Shut up, babe.” He touched the point of the knife to her nipple. Just so she could feel the point – not nearly enough to draw blood.

Her pounding pulse jiggled her little breasts, and she was hardly breathing. Nice. Just right.

He laid the hilt on her stomach and positioned the hefty bare blade between her breasts. “You planning to move?”

Her no was so low he barely heard it.

“Didn’t think so. Gonna have some fun now … Warning, babe, you wriggle and I’ll amuse myself with the blade instead.”

You get the idea.

As the scene progresses deVries gets more wicked. There’s some light scratching. Some pretty evil head-screwing. And while I wasn’t so sold on the rest of the novel, I read this scene three times in quick succession because something in it was shouting ‘HOT!’ at me very, very loudly; making the kinky part of my brain sit up and go ‘Hmmm’.

I’m still not absolutely sure what it is about it that’s appealed to me so deeply. I’ve read edgeplay scenes involving knives before and, while I’ve appreciated them and the sentiment and psychology behind them – Maren Smith’s Holding Hannah, for example – it’s definitely been a case of YKINMK. Perhaps it’s the delivery, the way the scene is carried out rather than the implement(s) used in it? The way Lindsey, the sub, is blindfolded so crudely? The way she is restrained? Whatever the appeal, I do know that it is making me think very, very hard about what exactly it is I don’t like about the Wartenberg. My current ponderings suggest that my exclusion of ‘sharp things’ during play may have been far too broad. And this is where I come back to my ‘it’s all in the detail’ statement. A prickle is very different to a scratch, just as the thwack of a flogger is very different to the bite of cane. It seems so obvious in hindsight that the two sensations are really quite different beasts and yet I’ve been lumping them together into the same bucket.

It just shows that the brain doesn’t always see what’s obvious.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had such a reaction to a bit of text, either. If you read my post The Violet Wand Diaries: Part One, you’ll know that my curiosity around electrical play sparked off (sorry, couldn’t help myself) in much the same way. It just goes to show that context and delivery have a huge role to how we perceive various kinks.

Even more interestingly, M, who, like me, doesn’t tend towards edgeplay, read this scene at my request – after initially taking a step backwards at my pre-read CliffsNotes overview – and had a very similar reaction to it, albeit from a Top rather than a bottom perspective. Clearly, something in what is described is calling out to both of us, perhaps tapping into an undercurrent in our play that we’re both unaware of. Go figure. He’s not a sadist. I’m not keen on sharp things. And yet we both read a scene involving both and go ‘ooh!’

I sense a boundary shift on the horizon.

*Since writing this post, I have been keeping an eye on the reviews for Edge of the Enforcer on Amazon and Goodreads and am intrigued to see just how many people have responded the same way I did to the play in it given that it has a relatively mainstream readership. In the words of one reviewer:

“I have to admit, I’ve never been into edge play, but the mindfvck [sic] of the knife play scene was seriously steamy.”

You can read various the various reviews here (Goodreads) and here (Amazon).

The post Edges, Limits and Boundaries appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Anyway the other day, Michael and I received a fantastic surprise: Take Me, Break Me will soon be released in paperback and guess whose words will be appearing on the cover? Yup. Mr M’s.

Cari, we cannot be anything other than utterly thrilled and flattered – especially since we’re in the fine quotation company of Club Shadowlands goddess Cherise Sinclair. It’s a huge honour to be featured on your book in this way and we can’t thank you enough for acknowledging us.

Now [taps foot impatiently] – when can we expect the next instalment in the Pierced Hearts series? Because, you know, those stick figures want an encore …

The post Take us and Break us: we’re on Cari’s cover! appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Title:

This joint review was a no-brainer for us. Michael and I are both big fans of Cherise Sinclair and it’s fair to say that we were both gagging to read this latest instalment in her Shadowlands series. When I suggested to him that This Is Who I Am should be our next project?

@Jane: I have been looking forward to that book for over a year:

‘”I won’t scar you. I won’t go past when you can take. If you can trust me that far, this will be much easier for you.” He met her eyes straight on, letting her read his body, hear the truth, and see it in his face. “But, Linda, I’m going to hurt you. You’ll hate me when I make you take it, and you’ll hate even more that you need it. That it fills that hole inside you and cleans away the clutter.”‘

(To Command and Collar (Shadowlands Book 6))

@Michael: CANNOT WAIT for Sam. And DeVries from Dark Haven. They both scare and tempt at the same time … *sigh*

Yep, we were pushing the download button on release day.

Did it live up to our expectations?

MICHAEL’S TAKE 

I tend to think of the Shadowlands series as one of the crown jewels of romantic BDSM fiction. Each book in it tends to be better than the last.

Last year we were treated to the most fantasy-oriented of the series. When Kim is rescued from the evil Harvest Association by Raoul, a series of improbable events causes her to assume the place of the slave he has always wanted. During the course of the story we see a moment occur between Linda, another woman kidnapped by the Harvesters, and Sam, a friend of Raoul’s, who tries to keep her safe in a rather unique way. A way that ends badly.

‘He rubbed his hand over his mouth, wanting to swear up a storm. He’d sliced into her defenses with less finesse than a baby dom with a new whip. After a glance at the attendant who still hovered nearby, Sam knew he couldn’t explain to her, to apologize–not here–but when this was over, they’d talk. Damn straight, they would.’

But they wouldn’t. At least not until now.

Linda is home. Back from her kidnapping. Recovered physically and largely emotionally. But she faces a new menace, in some ways just as destructive and self-serving as her kidnappers: The Court of Public Opinion. She wasn’t a child kidnapped from her bedroom. She wasn’t a teen walking home from her fast food restaurant job. She was a woman who had just stepped out of an S&M dungeon. That meant she deserved what happened to her, right? In fact, she probably enjoyed all of it.

Fortunately, not everyone feels that way. And foremost among them is Sam.

Linda is a masochist and a submissive. This isn’t a story about a woman who thinks that she’s become either of these things through a bad experience. What Sam provides is a way for her to work through her feelings and figure out where she wants to go with them. And she actually helps Sam do the same thing in the process. Because he’s got some experiences in his past that he’s never quite dealt with, too.

Just one minor thing: The stories are set in Tampa, a place I know pretty well. In fact, I used to live right where one of the key events in the story takes place (when Sam meets Linda’s children at the café). But I never got the feeling that they were really there, as much as the geographical references are sprinkled in, from looking at a map. Next time, I would at least like to know if we are on Fowler, Fletcher, or 30th Street.

This one is timely, both advancing the genre and the story of the series. And I can’t wait to see what happens next.

JANE’S TAKE 

Responsible.

That’s the word that springs to mind whenever I read a book from Cherise Sinclair’s Shadowlands series. Basically, I know that whatever happens, the Doms won’t behave like complete tools and the submissives, whatever their issues, will end up grinning from ear-to-ear because they’ve been done six kinky ways ‘til Sunday. And then some. Given that This Is Who I Am’s male protagonist is a Dominant sadist and the plotline revolves around sexual enjoyment through pain, both giving and receiving? Well, let’s just say that knowing the story was written by Ms Sinclair was a huge (huge) weight off my mind going in. This sort of subject matter can be pretty frickin’ scary to read about when tackled with the wrong pen but, as predicted, this book goes to all those lovely dark places you want it to without ever feeling negatively risky or dangerous.

As Michael said to me while we were reading:

‘Cherise just has a way of creating Doms that I trust implicitly to do the right thing. Not every author does that for me.’

So, the pain factor; how hardcore is the hurting? Well, personally, I thought all the scenes between Linda and Sam were handled beautifully and, while there are some things that may make certain readers’ eyes open a little wider, their interactions are written in such a way that everything that passes between them feels incredibly natural and erotic. The descriptions of masochistic pleasure and the way Linda processes it are excellent and the way Sam conducts himself and his need to hurt refreshingly unapologetic. The play never feels out-of-control or violent – just measured, sensual, exciting and very, very hot. It’s accessible S/M, in other words; I wasn’t reading and going ‘I can’t believe they did that!’ or ‘WTF?’.

Which leads me on nicely to my next point.

I really (really) loved the ‘normalisation’ of masochism and sadism in this book – and would even go so far as to say this was the aspect of This Is Who I Am that resonated with me the most. People being to able to talk openly and honestly, to accept themselves for what they are without fear and/or shame? Bring it on.

Finally, Sam.

Dear, God, but I love that man. (He’s not real, Jane. He’s not real …)

@Michael:

I love Sam.

I love Sam.

I love Sam.

Did I mention how much I love Sam?

I think if I could assemble my perfect Sadist, LEGO-style, he’d be pretty close to what I’d end up with.

I know that This Is Who I Am is an idealised, romantic version of BDSM but the core sentiments are beautiful and, ultimately, what many of us would want to find or experience in a D/s S/M exchange. The suspense plot is a little woolly but with such erotic scenes between the protagonists, who really cares?

Tickle your fancy? Click on the following links to purchase a copy:

Amazon.co.uk

• This Is Who I Am – Kindle

Amazon.com

• This Is Who I Am – Kindle

The post This Is Who I Am – Cherise Sinclair appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

So it’s busy silence. Honestly!

Jane
xxx

The post Silence appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

On Monday, we covered the books that, for various reasons, had some sort of influence on the first two decades of my life. In this post, I’m going to be looking at titles that have managed to stick a literary stake in me post-twenty through to the present day. (For those who’re curious I’m thirty-five, so this particular batch spans a fifteen-year period.)

Again, a really mixed bag, although my penchant for grit and darkness is, I think, far more evident in this group. Surprisingly, there are a number of YA books in the line-up; not sure whether that’s because I’m completely ambivalent when it comes to ‘recommended age group’ ratings or a sign that I’m desperately trying to have a second childhood. I’ll let you decide.

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Age read: 21
Charlotte is my favourite Brontë, although after hating her sister Emily’s Wuthering Heights (I thought Heathcliff was a total tool) I was a bit slow in getting to her. Picked this one up and didn’t put it down until I’d reached the end. Rochester is, in my opinion, one of the best Byronic heroes out there. Complex, troubled, but ultimately loveable; smouldering and redeemable in a way that that wanker Heathcliff just isn’t. I’d even pick him over Mr Darcy.

Rain – Kirsty Gunn
Age read: 24
Another Kiwi novel, which just goes to show how strong an affinity I have with authors from the country I grew up in (New Zealand); clearly, there is something about the language and style of Godzone writers that speaks to me. This book is dark, there is no happy ending, and it is spectacular. In 2001, a film of the book was released, directed by Christine Jeffs (Sylvia, Sunshine Cleaning), which made it into the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. It also appeared at the Sundance, Edinburgh, Toronto, and Montreal film festivals. Watch the trailer below and be seduced. (Although I should warn you that a friend of mine bought the DVD on my recommendation and his wife cried for a week after watching it :-/)

Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
Age read: 24
Did Grace do it? Is she an innocent young girl or a cold-blooded murderer? The colour symbolism in Margaret Atwood’s books never fails to win me over. Cat’s Eye, which is my other favourite of hers, plays with purple; Alias Grace, however, teases with the contrast of innocent white and guilty red. I adore clever authors and Atwood is as sharp as they come.

Venetia – Georgette Heyer
Age read: 27
What started as a casual dalliance rapidly exploded into a steaming hot love affair. I now have an entire shelf devoted to Georgette’s regency romances and, while I’ve named Venetia as my landmark book here, I could quite easily slot any one of her ton titles into its place. The libertine Lord Damerel? Well, we all need a bad boy to cheer for, don’t we?

Crank – Ellen Hopkins (YA)
Age read: 31
Two words: free verse. I found out about Crank because it was banned from a youth literary festival – or, rather, the author, Ellen Hopkins, was banned from said festival because her book was deemed to contain content ‘inappropriate’ for minors. Sex and drugs, basically. Wow. Young people don’t come across those sorts of things nowadays, do they? Tackling the very difficult topic of crystal meth addiction is one thing, but to do it in free verse? Ellen, I bow to you. Reading this was like being smacked in the face with breeze block – and I mean that as a compliment.

*You can read about the furore surrounding Crank here.

Story of O – Pauline Réage/Anne Desclos
Age read: 32
Why did it take me so long to get to this book? I really don’t know. Looking at my reading history, this should (in theory) have come much, much earlier. Pauline Réage (the pen name of French journalist Anne Desclos) supposedly penned O as something of an ‘in your face’ after being told by her lover, Jean Paulhan, that women weren’t capable of writing decent erotica. Originally produced as a series of love letters, Réage pulled out all the stops and turned out what I have come to think of as the BDSM erotica benchmark. Whipping, branding, piercing, sexual slavery … Reading it was a decidedly uncomfortable experience. You can absolutely tell that it was designed to appeal to Paulhan’s love of the Marquis de Sade. Disturbing and hot in equal measure.

Lean on Me – Cherise Sinclair
Age read: 32
BDSM erotic romance. No one does it like Ms Sinclair. This is actually the fourth entry in the Shadowlands series but it’s my favourite because the entire book is devoted to the development of the relationship between Cullen, an experienced Dom, and the fiercely independent Andrea, who’s desperate to submit. There’s no suspense plot. No mystery. Nothing except them working out how to be with one another. It’s rare that I pick an erotic romance up and read it more than once. Lean on Me, however, has been on and off my bookself multiple times.

Blood Promise – Richelle Mead (YA)
Age read: 32
Tears. Lots and lots of tears. In fact, at one point, my husband told me to put Blood Promise down because I got so upset over it. Rose is a teenage dhampir, a hunter of evil vampires known as Strigoi. The man who taught her to fight, the man she’s in love with, Dimitri, has been turned – and she must kill him. This book was emotionally relentless and ended with a cliffhanger of epic proportions – not something I normally like. Dimitri? *Sigh* Even when he’s totally soulless he’s delicious. (For some reason, my friend L has it in her head that he looks like Ashley Banjo – who I agree is very hot, but definitely not who I picture when I think of Russian vampire slayers!)

Forbidden – Tabitha Suzuma (YA)
Age: 34
Almost didn’t buy this because of the subject matter – incest – but was swayed by the stellar online reviews. I definitely made the right decision. This is a brilliant, brilliant book that, unfortunately, I think a lot of people run past because they’re worried about their ability to cope with the challenging content. Just to be clear, Forbidden IS NOT an erotica but a very (very) realistic portrayal of love between siblings. There’s no denying that this is a difficult read but Suzuma’s treatment of the topic is at once unashamed, delicate and masterful. She manages to create a grey area where I never, ever thought there could be one. Poignant and haunting (read: I cried, sobbed and snotted all over the place).

Captive in the Dark – C.J. Roberts
Age read: 34
Self-published. Independently marketed. Wickedly difficult subject matter. Actually, to the power of about a billion on that last one. As one reviewer friend on Goodreads said whilst reading it:

‘I might just have to scrub myself clean with a wire brush.’

He went on to give it a very high rating, as I did.

A classic example of an author going where angels fear to tread and turning out something amazing.

*You can find a full review of Captive in the Dark here.

So, that’s it. A very condensed summary of Jane through her reading habits. Enlightening? Interesting? Or have I now scared you all away with my penchant for dark tales involving death, murder, S/M, incest and human trafficking?! :-/

The post My Life in Books (Part Two) appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Lately, I’ve noticed that increasing numbers of female erotica and erotic romance writers are using flowery euphemisms less and what we would traditionally have considered ‘baser’, masculine terms more. We all have different tastes, obviously, but I’m curious to know whether our comfort levels as female readers are changing. In text, are we now more able to embrace words that, say, five or ten years ago had the power to shock us? And do they invoke feelings of arousal or have we simply become desensitised by the rise in their use?

The feminist Germain Greer said in the BBC’s Balderdash and Piffle series, which originally aired back in 2006, that the word ‘cunt’ was ‘one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock.’ Is this still true six years down the line? (I did consider titling this post ‘Cunt: when is it appropriate?’ but decided that the word, when used blatantly and without context, would likely be a barrier to people reading any further into this piece. Which tells me straight away that I, personally, have attached some degree of stigma to it even though I consider myself fairly comfortable with ‘cunt’ in the context of erotic writing.) I also have to wonder if the success of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey is due to its rather chaste language. Sure, we get some non-vanilla toys and some alternative sex practices, but how many times do we get to hear about Anastasia’s ‘down there’ during the course of the story? I’m not saying that you have to use crude words to write good sexual content – look at John Cleland’s Fanny Hill – but do we, as women, have a fear of using certain words in the bedroom?

Time for a rather unscientific experiment.

I asked some well-read ladies of different ages and degrees of shockability to give me their reactions to some raw words in an erotic context. For reference, I’ve included both the Oxford Dictionary definition for each, plus some short excerpts from popular erotic books, written by female authors. Their different takes on the words – and their respective ‘smut comfort levels’ – are  extremely interesting.

pussy

noun (plural pussies)

vulgar slang a woman’s genitals.

•          [mass noun] women in general, considered sexually.

‘His voice was a demanding, low rumble. He tightened his hands in her hair, and her pussy clenched from the sensation of being controlled, used.’

- Owning Wednesday by Annabel Joseph

Kiki: A couple of circling butterflies down below. I don’t mind the word pussy at all. It’s playful, self-descriptive, non-offensive.

LongSkirt: The first word (sorry I can’t repeat it even in type). Literally shaking, I think that is without a doubt the worst of all words for me.

MissR: There’s something of the schoolyard in this little term, with its faux innocence. It reminds me of early boyfriends testing the boundaries of describers. It is also largely 80s in my mind; I think of thinly veiled song lyrics and their desperation to be raunchy and still avoid a censor. Meaning this passage gives me the giggles, not the wiggles.

Romilly: This is a good word for erotic fiction – a great slang word for ‘down there’. Pussy is so much sexier than using the technical terms and gets straight to the point and the action, unlike the flowery descriptions you sometimes come across.

Poseyfossil: Bleurgh. A hissing noise has never been sexy. The double ‘s’ sound is cold and utterly un-arousing, sticks in your teeth and carries a strong risk of unintentional spitting. For try-hards and parody only.

fuck

verb

[with object]

have sexual intercourse with (someone).

• [no object] (of two people) have sexual intercourse.

noun

an act of sexual intercourse.

• [with adjective] a sexual partner of a specified ability.

Origin: early 16th century: of Germanic origin (compare Swedish dialect focka and Dutch dialect fokkelen); possibly from an Indo-European root meaning ‘strike’, shared by Latin pugnus ‘fist’.

‘While I’m getting ready,’ the man said, unbuckling his belt, ‘why don’t you have a little play with yourself? Get in the mood? I want you to be nice and wet when I fuck you.’

The Business of Pleasure – Justine Elyot

Kiki: Love the word ‘fuck’. It’s classic and still holds punch with me. I don’t find it offensive and, in the context of erotica, it gets the juices flowing.

LongSkirt: This word doesn’t bother me but I don’t like it in the context of sex at all. I blushed when I read the extract from The Business of Pleasure and I swear was also fanning myself a little like a cliché from a Victorian novel.

MissR: This, for me, is the baseline of literature. It’s just sex, a bit too masculine and, quite frankly, a bit boring. It is supposedly unromantic, and always used that way. However, when I picture the subtle throws of bedroom antics as portrayed in the traditional missionary position of ‘making love’, I think being fucked sounds more accurate. I just never see it described that way, so leaves me mid eye-roll.

Romilly: Yes, it is a vulgar word, but not a shocking as the ‘C’ word. I like the word in erotic fiction as it describes the base act, the pure animal pleasure. Not everyone ‘makes love’ every time…

Poseyfossil: I love the word ‘fuck’. Like most four-letter words, its impact lies in its brevity and, for me, the clincher is the fabulous ‘ck’ ending which catches the back of your throat, almost as if it knows what is to come….

cunt

noun

vulgar slang

a woman’s genitals.

Origin: Middle English: of Germanic origin; related to Norwegian and Swedish dialect kunta, and Middle Low German, Middle Dutch, and Danish dialect kunte.

‘She shivered as he teased over the creases between her cunt and thighs. With her pussy stuffed full and her legs splayed, her clit was beautifully exposed—a fat, glistening pink pearl.’

My Leige of Dark Haven – Cherise Sinclair

Kiki: Hate it. It’s used, in my opinion, by misogynists. Have no idea why women now adopt the term. It’s foul. Scares me more than excites me.

LongSkirt: The third word (also unable to repeat). Tapping feet and waving hands about (possibly squeaking a little). When I read the extract I think I theatrically gasped then quickly exited lest anyone see what I was reading!

MissR: As someone who is easily distracted by metaphor, I had to reread this passage to find the ‘c word’ in there. And I do generally refer to it as the ‘c word’, but I do that for my friends, rather than for my own sensibilities. I mean, I’ve said ‘cunt’ quite a few times – and mostly at an inopportune moment. The thing about it is that people make you into a bit of a villain for it, but for me it’s the best most empowering term we have.

Romilly: Hmmm… not comfortable with this at all. I don’t find it sexy, just crass, and I don’t like it to see it written or hear it spoken.

Poseyfossil: There is something fabulously pagan about ‘cunt’. It says earthy woman of the forest who’ll brew you something potent before riding you round her mud hut wearing antlers. Sadly misappropriated as both an insult and something to be offended by, mostly by people who would balk at wearing antlers in bed.

cock

noun

vulgar slang a man’s penis

‘With his hands clamped on her thighs, and his still-erect cock sticking out of his open fly, he went down on her with a furious tongue, lashing at her, penetrating her, taking what he’d just had.’

Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood Series, Book 10) – J.R. Ward

Kiki: Another classic term for me, it appeals to my 80s bleach blonde/tan/jock curiosity. A small stirring from this word.

LongSkirt: This doesn’t embarrass me at all really but it still isn’t a word I would use in a sexual context.

MissR: This is a timid old word for me. It’s almost polite really. It’s so common, and slips quietly into conversation, the mouse of the world confident to utter it as derogatory. The passage gives it punch here, with an enthusiasm and drive I that I don’t normally assign to it.  Bravo!

Romilly: Again, very comfortable with this term in erotic fiction as it bypasses the flowery descriptions, which are not necessary. As you read the word, your imagination paints the picture.

Poseyfossil: Tricky to type that you love cock and not risk losing the attention of the reader to the rest of your sentence but, like its bedtime story companions ‘suck’ and ‘fuck’, ‘cock’ is short and sweet. By uttering the letters, the shape of your mouth and throat becomes primed for fellatio. And if you don’t like someone, it’s very easy to utter this under your breath and fake a coughing fit should you suspect you’ve been overheard.

A very mixed bag of reactions, to say the least. So, where do you stand on the most infamous of English words?

The post Talk dirty to me appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Title:

Cherise Sinclair, how much do I love My Liege? Let me count the ways.

I love the depth and breadth of His character.
I love His outward poise and inner grace.
I love His calm, His confidence.
I love His humility.
I love His stoicism.
I love the way He expresses himself.
I love that He questions himself.
I love His naturalness.
But most of all, I love His dominance.

Oh, my goodness. If I had the ability to will a fictional character into existence, I would be doing my utmost to bring Xavier Leduc (a.k.a ‘My Leige’) to life. He strides about the pages of My Liege of Dark Haven, dominating the characters in the story – the heroine, Abigail Bern, in particular – and the reader like the most wonderfully dark maestro. He is absolutely – wonderfully – consuming.

I realise that I’ve only recently posted a review for one of Cherise Sinclair’s other books (Breaking Free from the Club Shadowlands/Masters of the Shadowlands series) but I’ve been waiting for My Leige’s story for the past few months and it – He – is just too good not to talk about immediately. Master Xavier waits for no one.

So what’s My Liege of Dark Haven about, then? Let me tell you, dear reader, let me tell you …

Abigail Bern is a sociology professor facing major university cutbacks and the end of a romantic relationship with a fellow academic, a man who has tried repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) to engage her in BDSM. Desperate to hold onto her job and to try and understand her ex-partner’s desires – with the tentative hope that they might one day get back together – she decides that publishing some edgy and ground-breaking research on non-vanilla sexual practices may help her achieve both her goals.

‘Publish or perishwas not longer a cute phrase—not with the proposed cutbacks at her university.

It had been a ghastly week. She might lose her job and she’d definitely lost Nathan.
.
.
.
She hadn’t been meeting his needs, he’d said. His need to tie her up, call her names, order her around. His need to have his precious BDSM in the bedroom. Hopefully, during her fieldwork, she’d grow to understand the appeal of such things.’

But rather than making a formal approach to the BDSM community regarding her proposed research, Abigail decides to covertly observe the members of a local fetish club, Dark Haven. Wanting to watch their behaviour without actually participating herself, Abigail signs up for the position of part-time club secretary but is shocked to realise that standing on the sidelines isn’t permitted; as part of her role, she is expected to assist in demonstrations. Even more worryingly for Abigail, she attracts the attention of Dark Haven’s owner, Xavier Leduc, a seriously experienced Dom who both scares and excites her – and exposes her as a submissive, despite her protestations to the contrary.

‘”I’m not a submissive, I’m a Domme,” she informed him in reasonable tones. “I’m the one putting clamps on, not receiving.”

“The receptionists are always submissive.” Before she got herself in trouble, he made a guess and asked, “Simon recruited you?’

She nodded.

“Despite your overly encompassing clothing, I doubt Simon made an error.” Xavier took her pointed chin between his thumb and finger. As her smoky eyes widened and she tried to retreat, he let his voice slip into command mode. “Be still.”

A shiver ran through her, and her pupils dilated. Even her breathing stopped.’

Xavier, My Leige, is inexplicably fascinated by the woman who has suddenly appeared on his staff. (No pun intended.) Abigail is clearly intelligent and her quick, ever-active mind, naturally submissive nature, and desire to please are an irresistible challenge to him. Xavier wonders what it will take to make Abigail truly let go, but in pushing her boundaries finds that he’s dangerously close to becoming more involved with her than he ever planned. And then there’s the matter of her somewhat odd propensity to watch other members of Dark Haven at play …

Cherise Sinclair writes D/s like no one else. Her stories and characters are excellent, but what really sets her apart is her ability to get into the psychology of BDSM because she understands that the crux of sexual power exchange lies in the mind, not the body. Even better, her Doms, while experienced, aren’t perfect. They acknowledge their shortcomings and understand they aren’t infallible. They ‘listen’ to their partners; their bodies, their words. To what they don’t say as well as what they do. Even when the action on the page is singe-your-fingers hot, the minds of the characters are never left behind; the physical and mental are intrinsically linked.

There are some truly beautiful D/s encounters in My Liege of Dark Haven (I loved the very realistic – and educational – nipple clamp scene in the first quarter of the book) but one of the most powerful exchanges to my mind is the one that occurs between Abigail and her ex, Nathan. It provides a wonderful contrast to the former’s interactions with My Leige and is extremely effective in underscoring that BDSM is fundamentally about trust.

I think I covered the reasons why I like Xavier so much in my introduction but I’ll just re-iterate again, here, how much I adored him. Heck, he made me want to kneel for him and I was merely reading His book, not participating in it. Definitely a contender for the ‘my favourite Cherise Sinclair Dom’ spot – he’s jostling Nolan (Breaking Free) and Cullen (Lean on Me) for position. That’s not to say he is the sole engaging character in My Liege of Dark Haven. Oh, no. The extremely likeable Abigail, his foil, was utterly endearing in her ‘realness’. I loved that she had flyaway hair and bad eyesight. That she wasn’t ‘other worldly’ or insanely and annoyingly perfect.

The other thing I particularly enjoyed was that the focus of My Liege of Dark Haven was very much on the BDSM relationship at its core. Its exploration of Xavier and Abigail’s strengthening connection was the backbone of the storyline and there were no extraneous plot points to detract from the mental sparring taking place between the two protagonists. (Cherise Sinclair’s Club Shadowlands/Masters of the Shadowlands series – which I have loved reading – tends to include instalments that contain elements of suspense. I don’t dislike this device but, personally, the writing of hers that I’ve enjoyed most has focussed almost exclusively on a Dom and a sub forming a bond with one another.)

I should point out that My Liege of Dark Haven contains characters that were originally introduced as part of the Doms of Dark Haven anthologies (Doms of Dark Haven and Doms of Dark Haven 2, Western Night), which Cherise Sinclair co-wrote with Sierra Cartwright and Belinda McBride, and her Masters of the Mountain series. You don’t have to have read any of these books to enjoy and appreciate My Liege of Dark Haven, though. But I suspect you’ll be curious about past faces.

I really wonderful book that will undoubtedly make you hot under the collar. And Ms Sinclair? I am utterly intrigued by the deliciously sadistic DeVries. I can only imagine what he has in store for Lindsey. Because I good Dom never forgets – and I’m 99.9 per cent certain he’s going to collect on that debt she owes him … Oh to be in her shoes. <Sigh>

Tickle your fancy? Click on the following links to buy this book from: Amazon.co.uk (Kindle), Amazon.com (Kindle).

The post My Liege of Dark Haven – Cherise Sinclair appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

How’s this for an opening line:

‘Music, beer, tie up a willing woman, maybe use a flogger lightly … should be a no-stress evening.’

Breaking Free was the first book that I read of Cherise Sinclair’s and it made me an absolutely devoted fan of her Masters of the Shadowlands series. It’s well written, has excellent characterisation, a wonderful sense of tension and is hot with a capital ‘H’. (Did I mention it’s hot?)

Where to start? Well, I’m actually going to kick off with the message that Cherise Sinclair includes at the beginning of the book (and indeed all her others that involve BDSM):

‘This book is fiction, not reality … Good Doms don’t grow on trees and there’s some strange people out there. So while you’re looking for that special Dom, please, be careful.
.
.
.
When you find him, realize he can’t read your mind.’
You will have a safeword, am I clear? Use protection. Have a back-up person. Communicate.
Remember: safe, sane and consensual.’

For this alone, I applaud Ms Sinclair. Before the book has even begun, she’s taken a socially responsible approach to the reader and made it clear that, while Breaking Free is a contemporary erotic romance, it is fiction and you shouldn’t be running out to your nearest fetish club and asking the first person you encounter to tie you up and take a cane to your behind. This may sound like a no-brainer but a lot of people use books as inspiration – just look at the rise in sex toy sales since Fifty Shades of Grey hit the mainstream – and Cherise’s message is an important one. That’s not to say that other books don’t include disclaimers (many do) but the personal approach to the reader from the author, I think, is commendable.

Breaking Free centres around Beth, a submissive who has suffered abuse at the hands of her sadistic husband, and Nolan King – a Dom who spends his free time helping oversee his friend Z’s BDSM club, the Shadowlands.

Beth is submissive through-and-through but her experiences at the hands of the man she married have left her traumatised and she cannot bring herself to trust anyone enough to truly dominate her. Z (short for Zachary) can see that Beth is going nowhere fast and gives her an ultimatum: play with a Dom of his choosing or forfeit membership at his club.

When Beth sees the person Z has chosen for her, Master Nolan, she is terrified. He’s large, brutal-looking and experienced – the epitome if everything she’s scared of, but her desire to play within the safety of the Shadowlands (a private establishment with vigilant monitors who watch over those who frequent it) wins out over her fear and she agrees to have Nolan top her.

If you’ve not read a BDSM erotic romance before I would highly recommend Breaking Free as an entry book to the genre. It’s well written and really gets into the psychology of domination and submission. As Nolan points out while watching another Dom trying – and failing – to arouse Beth:

‘Nine tenths of sex [is] in the head.’

Similarly, if you enjoyed Fifty Shades of Grey and are looking for something new to read, I strongly encourage you to pick this up: Breaking Free is better on every level and, I think, highlights what BDSM erotic romance can be when in the hands of an skilled and knowledgeable author such as Ms Sinclair. Nolan is such a well-drawn character and gives the reader a good idea of the sense of responsibility and caring that is essential to any good dominant in a BDSM relationship. He’s not portrayed as ‘fucked up’ in the way that Christian Grey is – rather, he’s an everyday guy with sexual preferences that the general public would likely define as ‘non-vanilla’. There’s no ridiculous childhood trauma that makes him the way he is. He’s just Nolan. And he is perfectly comfortable in his own skin.

Of all the female characters I’ve come across over the past year or two, Beth is one of my favourites. She’s believable, likeable and a total battler. Having withstood being chewed up and spat out by her marriage you cannot help but cheer her on as she attempts to come to grips with Nolan, who quietly challenges and encourages her to overcome her inhibitions and fears.

‘A tremor ran through her.

He saw her reaction immediately; she had a feeling nothing escaped those piercing eyes. The authority and power that radiated from him demanded submission, and she dropped her eyes.

This was an experienced Dom, the type she avoided.’

Although there is, percentage-wise, a large amount of (very hot) sex in this book, there’s also a great deal of dialogue and internal analysis from Beth and Nolan’s respective points-of-view, both of which help give their relationship texture and credibility. The sexual activity is always put in context, so that the reader doesn’t feel like they’ve been privy to something that’s without emotional entanglement and significance. One of my favourite lines in the book is delivered by Nolan, when he explains why he wants to Beth to articulate how she feels after they’ve had sex:

‘We talk for two reasons. I may know how you felt, but you need to know too. Bodies and emotions don’t always communicate. And secondly, I might think I’m God, but I’m not. I make mistakes just like everyone else.’

As far as negatives go, the only real issue I had with Breaking Free came between chapters twelve and fourteen. I can’t reveal too much without introducing a significant spoiler but will say that the sequence of events that unfolds between pages 186 and 216 is somewhat unbelievable – which is a shame because the rest of the book didn’t feel implausible at all. The plot development in question isn’t a deal-breaker, though, and I think that most readers will be able to cope with it without too many problems.

Breaking Free is the third book in the Masters of the Shadowlands series – and is tied with book four, Lean on Me, as my favourite – but you don’t have to have read the first two to enjoy this one. I suspect, however, that after finishing it you’ll likely be running out to purchase the other available titles.

A really good book and, tellingly, I’m stalking Ms Sinclair’s website waiting for more news on Sam and Sally’s stories …

Tickle your fancy? Click on the following links to buy this book from: Amazon.co.uk (Kindle ; Paperback), Amazon.com (Kindle ; Paperback).

The post Breaking Free – Cherise Sinclair appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Title: Fifty Shades of Grey
Author: E.L. James
ISBN: 978-0099579939
Publisher: Arrow (26 April 2012)

I’ve procrastinated over whether to do a review for Fifty Shades of Grey because, frankly, there’s not a lot that I can say about it that hasn’t already been said. The coverage of – and the furore around – this book has been absolutely massive and you can’t seem to walk five paces without bumping into someone who’s reading it or having a conversation about it. It’s broken sales records set by J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard, Harry Potter, and is the first book ever to reach the one million sales mark on Amazon Kindle. If you’ve been living in a parallel universe and haven’t a clue what I’m going on about, here’s a brief run-down …

Fifty Shades of Grey is an erotic romance written by British author E.L. James (a pseudonym for London T.V. executive Erika Leonard). It started life as fanfiction based on the characters and stories from Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, which James later reworked to create Fifty Shades of Grey and the two subsequent books in the series, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. To boil it right down to basics:

- Edward Cullen (wealthy blood-sucking vampire) becomes Christian Grey (wealthy flogger-wielding sadist);

- Bella Swan (virginal high school student) becomes Anastasia Steele (virginal college graduate);

- Forks (small Pacific North West town) becomes Seattle (large Pacific North West city).

So what’s all the fuss about? Well, if the media – who have managed to whip themselves into a completely ridiculous frenzy over it – are to be believed, this book is porn for the fairer sex (it isn’t); it’s unbelievably racy (well, it is steamier than a standard Mills & Boon but on the raunch scale it’s hardly the Marquis de Sade); and feminism has been set back twenty years because women are reading about sexual submission and – cue sharp intake of breath – enjoying it (no consensual power exchange fantasies for you).

I’ll be blunt. I have a love-hate relationship with this book. On one hand, I think it’s terrific that erotica and erotic romance, written for and by women, has entered the mainstream consciousness and that people are talking openly about it; any book that manages to prompt frank dialogue around sex and sexuality gets a thumbs up as far as I’m concerned. All too often, women are made to feel ashamed of – or that that they’ll be judged for – their reading choices and desires. The brilliant Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches Trashy Books summed it up best in her Romance, Arousal and Condescension blogpost back in March of this year:

 Romance is not porn for women.

Porn is porn for women.

Women have active sex lives and sexual desires.

All of these things are ok.

Here, here!

The thing I’m enjoying most about this book’s success? The fact that I’ve been able to talk much more frankly with people about erotica, romance and sex in general. The door was only cracked before (and in some cases closed and bolted); now it’s wide open and we’re much less concerned about who sees us walking through it.

On the flip side, the writing, characterisation and story development in Fifty (the things that make a decent book, basically) aren’t particularly good – in fact, they’re pretty awful – and, if I’m judging it against these things then it fails miserably.

If you’ve read Twilight, you’ll have a pretty good idea of the general storyline: Boy meets girl. Boy is obsessively attracted to girl (and vice versa). Boy tells her he’s bad for her (in the case of Fifty because he wants to handcuff her and whack her with a crop rather than suck every drop of blood from her body) and professes that they can’t be together because of his ‘issues’. 300+ pages of emotional angst ensues. Original it isn’t. The writing? It’s clunky and littered with the remnants of a journey through Roget’s Thesaurus (‘my unconscious has raised her somnambulant head’), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (‘I thought I was d’Urberville, not Angel’), and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (‘I feel like Icarus flying too close to the sun’) – although I suspect there was a day trip to the Wikipedia BDSM page, too (‘‘Hard limits?’ I ask. ‘Yes. What you won’t do.’’) There’s some deep philosophical thinking about the liking of cheese, too. (Don’t ask.)

But … BUT … For all its flaws, Fifty Shades of Grey is undoubtedly speaking to readers. The phrase that seems to come up again and again when I ask them what they like about it is ‘Well, the writing’s terrible but I just can’t seem to put it down’.

Anaïs Nin once wrote:

‘Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore …. how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships which change its color, flavor, rhythms, intensities.’

- The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 3, 1939-1944

And I think this might be the crux of it; my guess is that readers are compelled by, and are accepting of, the so-called ‘raunchier’ sex in Fifty because it is supported by the characters’ deep emotional entanglement. It’s not porn, which we can loosely define as gratuitous sex without emotion; it’s a romance. Who doesn’t enjoy a story in which love overcomes all obstacles?

The issues I have with Fifty Shades? Well, I’ve been reading books in the BDSM erotic romance genre for quite some time and know what else is out there – and believe me, there’s some really amazing writing, both old and new, that I think presents BDSM relationships in a far more positive, balanced and exciting way than Fifty Shades of Grey does. Take Cherise Sinclair’s Masters of the Shadowlands series, for example. I’m also uncomfortable with Christian Grey, the hero of the series, being portrayed as having something wrong with him because he has sexual proclivities that aren’t considered ‘mainstream’. My personal view is that no matter what your sexual preferences are, as long as you’re not breaking any laws by indulging them and your involvement with others is safe, sane and consensual, no one has the right to call them ‘fucked up’. Heck, if having sex while dressed as a chicken turns you on, knock yourself out.

But, clearly, this book strikes a chord with many people and my issues with it won’t necessarily be yours.

If you read Fifty Shades of Grey and felt turned on, eager to talk about sex with your partner and explore something new sexually (and from everything I’ve seen and read this seems to be very much the case), or you just flat-out enjoyed the story and are now reading more erotic romance as a result, then I could kiss E.L. James for writing it. Personally, I felt like I should have been flogged for reading it – and I would likely have enjoyed that more.

Fifty Shades of Grey is available from: Amazon.co.uk (Kindle ; paperback), Amazon.com (Kindle ; paperback), Barnes & Noble (Nook ; paperback), Kobo (eBook).

The post Fifty Shades of Grey – E.L. James appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.