Here’s a bit of extra-extra-extra-special news! Remember those two ebooks that the great folks at Renaissance/Sizzler recently published? The ones with techno/science fiction focuses - Better Than The Real Thing: Technorotica and Rude Mechanicals: Technorotica?  

Well, Renaissance/Eros Editions have just published a very special - print edition only - edition of both … plus extra-added content: Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo

“Love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans, while the number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practiced between humans will be extended, as robots teach more than is in all of the world’s published sex manuals combined.” -computer pioneer David Levy, in Love and Sex With Robots. 

Bondage, science fiction, fetishism, real realities and virtual realities collide in this unique collection by one of the most popular authors of erotica … ever!  

In the enigmatic M. Christian’s kinky new collection, two great things – technology and sex – go even better together! 

Welcome to Technorotica: a giant-sized collection of human-machine erotica. You’ll find everything from sexy robots to virtual reality lovers, from shameless science fiction to contemporary explorations of technology’s impact on our sex lives and our sexuality. Headlining this stellar collection are two unforgettable novellas: In “Hot Definition,” the story of a future just around our corner, Neko experiences the ultimate domination in a way she never expected; in “Speaking Parts,” two lovers, one with a camera-shutter eye, come together in a scorching, obsessive relationship that takes them both to the limits of sexuality – and beyond. Plus ten more provocative stories of sex and technosex. 

“Blow Up” alone makes it “worth buying I highly recommend this book.” -Fire Pages. 

“M. Christian is one hell of a writer. A no-holds-barred storyteller, he embraces his reader at the start and doesn’t let go until long after the end.” -Mari Adkins. 

“M. Christian’s stories squat at the intersection of Primal Urges Avenue and Hi-Tech Parkway … feral-eyed, half-naked … Truly an author for our post-everything 21st century.” -Paul Di Filippo, author The Steampunk Trilogy 

Cover art: Jade
Book design: Frankie Hill
ISBN-1615084479
Publication date: 4/03/2012
Pages: 170
List price: $15.99

Here’s a bit of extra-extra-extra-special news! Remember those two ebooks that the great folks at Renaissance/Sizzler recently published? The ones with techno/science fiction focuses - Better Than The Real Thing: Technorotica and Rude Mechanicals: Technorotica?  

Well, Renaissance/Eros Editions have just published a very special - print edition only - edition of both … plus extra-added content: Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo

“Love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans, while the number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practiced between humans will be extended, as robots teach more than is in all of the world’s published sex manuals combined.” -computer pioneer David Levy, in Love and Sex With Robots. 

Bondage, science fiction, fetishism, real realities and virtual realities collide in this unique collection by one of the most popular authors of erotica … ever!  

In the enigmatic M. Christian’s kinky new collection, two great things – technology and sex – go even better together! 

Welcome to Technorotica: a giant-sized collection of human-machine erotica. You’ll find everything from sexy robots to virtual reality lovers, from shameless science fiction to contemporary explorations of technology’s impact on our sex lives and our sexuality. Headlining this stellar collection are two unforgettable novellas: In “Hot Definition,” the story of a future just around our corner, Neko experiences the ultimate domination in a way she never expected; in “Speaking Parts,” two lovers, one with a camera-shutter eye, come together in a scorching, obsessive relationship that takes them both to the limits of sexuality – and beyond. Plus ten more provocative stories of sex and technosex. 

“Blow Up” alone makes it “worth buying I highly recommend this book.” -Fire Pages. 

“M. Christian is one hell of a writer. A no-holds-barred storyteller, he embraces his reader at the start and doesn’t let go until long after the end.” -Mari Adkins. 

“M. Christian’s stories squat at the intersection of Primal Urges Avenue and Hi-Tech Parkway … feral-eyed, half-naked … Truly an author for our post-everything 21st century.” -Paul Di Filippo, author The Steampunk Trilogy 

Cover art: Jade
Book design: Frankie Hill
ISBN-1615084479
Publication date: 4/03/2012
Pages: 170
List price: $15.99

Check it out: I just put up a brand new Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker column on the always great Erotica Readers & Writer’s site:

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For all that we know about Sherlock Holmes there is much that is a complete and total mystery about him - and, as he would say himself, a that is a puzzle that should be addressed.  Is it any wonder that so many of us have scratched our much-smaller craniums and pondered his relationships, trying to use his own maxim of “when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” to peer down deep into those mysteries?  This timely collection focuses on his unmentioned private life.  In short, the great detective’s amorous inclinations, the part of life Victorians were so silent on, but so profligate in its practice.  And the authors don’t stop there - you will also find stories about the sexual side of other key characters who make up the canon: Irene Adler, Mrs. Hudson, Dr. Watson, and even that most infamous of villains, Professor Moriarty.  Included are many of today’s most popular authors including Michael Kurland (American Book Award and the Edgar Award finalist), Angela Caperton (Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica), M. Christian (Lambda Award finalist), and such other distinguished practitioners of the short story and novelette as Cesar Sanchez Zapata, Kate Lear, Wade Heaton, Dorla Moorehouse, Ivo Benengeli, Billierosie, Zachary Jean, PM White, Violet Vernet.  As Holmes himself said: “The game is afoot.  Not a word! Into your clothes and come!

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The Adventures of the Gentlemen Travelers

She has seen many things in her life, but the young servant girl is about to get a whole new eye opener. 

He may be exceptionally good at solving mysteries, but that is not all that interests Holmes.

The unique make-up of the house provides the young girl a particularly good vantage point to listen in and observe her favorite detective, and she settles in watch. Holmes does not disappoint when it comes to the case, but what he engages in with Watson sets her body on fire.  

We all have a little voyeur lurking under the surface, and this is just what it is looking for.

The Many Facets of Ecstasy

Setting out to complete her mission Madame Josephine Gellizeau goes to the one man whom she knows will have the answers. The lady is and is not all that she seems, but Holmes has no doubt that he will uncover the truth. Holmes listens intently to what Ma dame Gellizeau tells him, and then he acts. Once again Watson is awed by his friend’s acuity, but this time he is also inflamed by the lengths they will go to reveal everything. Challenges and mysteries are Holmes’ forte, but this story adds a steaming hot element not to be missed. 

L’Instinct Suffit

There is more to learning a language than just memorizing the words, and for Watson, the French language is on a whole other level.

Spending much of his youth in France, Holmes speaks the language fluently, but in the heat of the moment it comes unconsciously as well.

He may not know exactly what Holmes is saying, but for Watson the meaning is clear, and he would not want it any other way. 

For these two men French is most certainly the language of lovers, and after this read, it may become yours as well. 

Mrs. Hudson’s LodgerTimes are hard, and Martha Hudson will have to rent out space in her home if she wishes to keep it.

The rooms for rent are just what Holmes is looking for, but he is not so sure about the mistress of the house.  Finding suitable lodging in London is a necessity for Holmes, and he seems to have found just the place. It seems however that his and Watson’s presence is having quite an unusual effect on their hostess.

This should serve as a warning to any lady who thinks she is past her prime. You could spontaneously combust if you do not seek release on a regular basis! 

Holmes and the Case of the Two Couples

Best friends for many years, Holmes is quite surprised by the events of one quiet evening.

It is good for a marriage to keep things interesting, and Watson has every intention of doing just that.

veryone has something they think that no one knows about, but with a friend like Holmes that is quite unlikely. Watson never really thought he would be on the receiving end of Holmes’ clue cracking abilities, but that is exactly where he finds himself. 

While I can say I would be rather offended if I were Watson, it just goes to show that a mind like Holmes’ never shuts off. 

Sherlock Holmes and the Curse of the Moonstone

Being accused of stealing a valuable family jewel Lady Florence McGuire seeks out the famed investigator. Not all is exactly what it seems; of that Holmes has no doubt.

It may have been a guess on Watson’s part, but he could not be closer to truth or farther away. Watson is also introduced to a lifestyle that he had no previous notion that Holmes engaged in, and he is more than thrilled to be included.

No one can surprise us more than our friends, and in this story Watson gets the biggest surprise of all. 

The Curious Case on Pomegranate Street

On the search for Oscar Wilde and his wife Holmes enters into a very uncomfortable situation. 

Indulgence in anything that pleases the body and the soul is what Armen lives for.

Not since he was a young man has Holmes given in to baser desires, but now the choice is out of his hands. He journeys back in time to relive a moment of sensual delight, and awakens to find himself being reintroduced to that same feeling.

It is so much more fun to be bad, and I love that Holmes gets to have a whole lot of fun.

The Case of the Unnatural Natural Instinct

Reflecting back Holmes recalls an event he feels it is time to share with his best friend.

Watson always knew his friend had had some very interesting exploits, but this one shocks him nonetheless. 

It began with the case of a young woman searching for an unseen lover, but for Holmes to dismiss the woman without explanation confuses Watson. He gets his answer upon her departure however, and it stuns him even more.

This may all be in the name of science for Holmes, but it is a titillating and sexy read for us. 

The Picture of Oscar Wilde

Completely distressed Oscar Wilde goes to a friend to help him get some answers. A few good clues lead Professor Moriarty to only one conclusion.

The photograph is good but it has been doctored and Moriarty is pretty confident he knows the culprit. The man blackmailing him is not who Oscar first suspects, but when the evidence is laid out, the truth is revealed. 

I find this to be a much more interesting who-done-it, mainly because it puts Moriarty in a whole new light. 

The Adventure of the Empty Box

Not much captures Holmes’ interest lately that is until a very unconventional piece of technology comes to his attention. 

To get a mystery solved Annabelle King Lovelace requires an expert, and she knows just who to talk to. 

Right away Holmes is aware that not everything is on the up and up, and he sends Watson to keep a very close eye on Annabelle. In the mean time he has his own path to follow, but even he is surprised at where it all leads. 

Even the best can be caught with their pants down, and it is intriguing to see how Holmes gets out of this very sticky situation. 

The Turkish Bath

A nice hot bath is often a luxury not many can afford on a daily basis, but Holmes has a better idea. Having spent a good deal of time in the arms of his best friend and lover, Watson does not need much convincing to try out a public bath house. 

The dingy water and overly crowded public bath houses in London make it easy for Holmes to convince Watson to try out the new Turkish baths. The very private atmosphere, cleanliness, and overall ambiance of the baths lead to an extremely satisfying afternoon for both men. 

This is one very sexy, sensual, and steamy read, and you are going to love every sweaty second.

The Curious Incident

Moriarty firmly believes in knowing his enemy, and he wants every last delicious detail. The secrets she holds are what he is after, but will Irene Adler reveal all? 

He has the woman in his hands, and Moriarty expects to learn exactly what makes Holmes tick. He has heard rumors, but what he wants from Irene is complete and intricate accounts of the man’s dirtiest secrets. 

It is plain to see the vicarious thrill Moriarty is getting out of Irene’s tales, and I love how this one keeps you guessing the entire time.  Friends, lovers, companions, and confidants describe the wonderfully intricate relationship between Holmes, Watson, and at times Moriarty, and each story has its own version to tell. I love the more erotic tales between these men the most, and The Turkish Bath is probably my favorite. There are also interesting little mysteries in several that will spike your curiosity from time to time. Any one of these authors are well worth the read, but put them all together, and you have a collection that is far from that stuffy English Sherlock Holmes you may have read before.

Wow - and I mean wow - this is very, very cool: the great Sasha Mitchell over at R.U. Sirius’s site Acceler8or.com just posted this very cool review of my dark gay thriller Finger’s Breadth. Here’s a tease:

Did Oscar Wilde ever mention a baby-shit sofa, as fetishized by Tom of Finland, and crusted with salty, sweet sticky?  Cliche to throw out Wilde when reviewing a piece of m4m fic?  About as cliche as including a reference to Sex in the City in said fic. 

Really, I josh.  Because apart from a (for me) slightly delayed pick-up—and the more obvious fact that yours truly is of the vaginal realm—I had fun with, and eventually became engrossed by, M. Christian’s Finger’s Breadth. 

Boilermakers, mambo-fuck you gay bars, scenarios seemingly inspired by a homoerotic Misery, and of course the ever prevalent ”asses flexing into handful-sized tightened cheeks” (is that your technology chirping, or is throbbing a better adjective?), Christian flaunts a downright capacity for electric lyric as well as (sorry mum, must include this in such a review) all the “hard cocks, strong cocks, long cocks, thick cocks – bobbing up and down, swinging right and left, even swirling in a sweaty circle,” that you could empty. 

Not to mention a devilishly intricate plotline, which goes as follows: Fanning is a freelance cop on a most perplexing case.  He kicks himself for not having caught whoever is terrorizing the tequila sunrises of Boyz Bay (did I just coin that?) by luring men for nonconsensual finger lobotomies. 

[MORE]

Check it out: my new post at the fantastic WriteSex site just went up. Here’s a tease (for the rest you’ll have to go to the site):

Like bestiality—and unlike underage sexuality—incest is a tough nut: it’s not something you might accidentally insert into an erotic story. Also like bestiality, it’s something that can definitely push—if not slam—the buttons of an editor or publisher. Yet, as with all of these “sins,” the rules are not as set in stone as you’d think. Hell, I even managed to not only write and sell an incest story (“Spike,” which is the lead story in Dirty Words) but it also ended up in Best Gay Erotica. The trick, and with any of these erotic button-pushers, is context. In the case of “Spike” I took a humorous, surreal take on brother/brother sexuality, depicting a pair of twin punks who share and share alike sexually, until their world is shattered (and expanded) by some rough S/M play. 

As with any of the “sins,” a story that deals with incest in a thought- provoking or sideways humorous manner might not scream at an editor or publisher I’M AN INCEST STORY. Instead, it will come across as humorous or thought-provoking first, and as a tale dealing with incest second. Still, once it comes to light, there’s always a chance the story might still scream a bit, but if you’re a skilled writer telling an interesting story, there’s still a chance quality could win over the theme. 

Unlike bestiality, incest has very, very few stretches (like aliens and myths with bestiality). It’s very hard to stumble into incest. In short, you’re related or you’re not. As far as degree of relationship, that depends on the story and the intent: immediate family relations are damned tough to deal with, but first cousins fooling around behind the barn are quite another. 

[MORE]

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, here’s not one, not two, but THREE chances to attend one of my celebrated classes!

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Magic Words: Using Erotic Writing To Explore Your Hidden Sexuality And Spirituality

Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 07:30pm

$15-30 sliding scale

Center For Sex And Culture

1349 Mission Street (at Grace Street between 9th and 10th streets) in San Francisco

There are many ways to reach your inner sexual and spiritual self — but one of the most surprisingly powerful paths is through the written word. In this lecture/workshop, participants will hear how erotic writing (fiction as well non-fiction) can reach hidden places that often lay unexposed, help make personal discoveries and to assist in a personal journey of self and sensuality. Participants will learn how to free their erotic writing voices, how to develop their writing towards discovering their erotic spirits within, and when to silence — and when to listen — to the inner critic.

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Sex Sells: How To Write & Sell Erotica

Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 07:30pm

$15-30 sliding scale

Center For Sex And Culture

1349 Mission Street (at Grace Street between 9th and 10th streets) in San Francisco

The market for erotic fiction and nonfiction is booming! There actually is a secret to writing great erotica - and you’ll discover just what that is in this fun, hands-on workshop with well-known erotica writer and teacher M. Christian.

For the beginning writer, erotica can be the ideal place to begin writing, getting published, and — best of all — earning money. And for the experienced writer, erotica can be an excellent way to beef up your resume and hone your writing skills. M. Christian will review the varieties of personal and literary expression possible in this exciting and expanding field. He’ll also teach you techniques for creating love and sex scenes that sizzle.

Plus: current pay rates, how to write for a wide variety of erotic genres, where and how to submit your erotic writing, and more.

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Sex Magic: Manifesting Positive Life Energy Through Erotic Play

Thursday, April 26, 2012 · 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

$20 Non-Members, $15 Members (smOdyssey, Inc.)

Private Location in San Jose

Here’s an  extra-special, extra-grand, extra-fabulous treat: the one-and-only Cecilia Tan’s intro to the original edition of my science fiction erotica collection … and which, naturally, is also in the new edition as well.

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I’m going to tell you a secret. There are only two people in the world I envy. One is the late Roger Zelazny, whose talent for an almost jazz improvisational way of writing I could never match.The other is M. Christian, for writing exactly what I’d write if only I could get off my ass. Which is to say, raunchy hallucinatory sexfuture dreams that never fail to arouse me and kick me in the gut at the same time. Good stuff. 

I’ve always said that if there was someone out there who would write exactly what it was I wanted to read, I wouldn’t have to do it myself. Honestly, when I discovered M. Christian, I had that half-formed thought: gee, maybe I can quit… (of course, I didn’t). 

It was the summer of 1994, if I remember correctly. I had founded Circlet Press three years before, to fill a void in the literary world. At the time, there was nowhere to publish erotic science fiction, or futuristic erotica, or whatever label you want to put on the wild, genre-bending stuff I and Lauren and others were writing. So I became a publisher, starting with chapbooks and slim little volumes of under one hundred pages. As news of the press spread to other speculative sex writers, manuscripts had begun to pour in for our anthologies. I decided I needed help getting through the growing slush pile and cajoled Lauren and some of my other authors to sit in my one-bedroom apartment one afternoon and read, read, read. We ordered Chinese take- out and delved into the manuscripts, pausing from time to time to eat a crab rangoon or read a “clunker” aloud.There were a lot of clunkers that day, and we were a pretty raucous group. 

Then everything got quiet. I looked up from the story I was reading, and two of my readers were looking at each other. They then traded manuscripts: “Here, now you read this one, I want that one!” They’d found not one, but two, really good somethings. Lauren then brought the manuscript in her hand to me and strongly suggested I read it that instant, not later. “Just read the first sentence.” 

I saw the words “I almost lost my virginity at fifteen, but his batteries ran low” and was hooked. 

The manuscript was “Technophile” by M. Christian. Lauren had written on the comment form she handed me with it: YES YES YES. I agreed. It wasn’t just the best story we’d read all day, it was one of the best stories we’d read in the genre, ever. 

The other story we received that day was “State,” a story I liked so much, I’ve published it twice. These two began a slew of stories Circlet published from Chris. At slush-readings in the future, people would go HUNTING for his name on envelopes, hoping to be the first to read something new. I’d like to say I had to break up a fistfight when “Fully Accessorized, Baby” was discovered, but that would be the fiction writer in me trying to sensationalize. (We just took turns.) 

When the story “Heartbreaker” came in, my then assistant Susan Groppi read it without knowing who it was from. “A very very very good story,” she wrote in her comment form. “I often find I can’t describe what it is I like, just that it’s good.” Her editorial instincts were right on when a story just kicks ass, your initial reaction isn’t a critical one, it’s simply “woo hoo!” 

One of the reasons I bought so many stories from Chris over the years is not only that the stories are consistently great, but that he has been able to write for any sexuality, from any point of view, man, woman, alien, third gender, robot, robot-wannabe… and of course sexualities and identities yet to be invented. For me, the whole purpose of combining two often formula-bound genres, erotica and science fiction, was to break out of the expected molds, to create something exciting, arousing, and provocative in all senses of the word. Chris has done that better than most who have tried their hand at it. He has a gift. And through that ability to see the world as it is not, to envision things wholly beyond our real boundaries of gender, technology, and identity, he is able to create characters that grab me. Characters I believe in. I empathize with Kusa, the rebuilt cybernetic woman-cop in “Heartbreaker.” I want to fuck Fields “the perfect love doll” in “State” and see if I can crack her facade. 

Even better, Chris is one of the few writers who has been able to sell me stories where everything is not happy and rosy. I’ve always insisted on a sex-positive outlook for Circlet Press no rape, no dismemberment, no homophobia, you get the idea but the result is a lot of happy stories, where sexy people have good sex and both they and the reader enjoy it. The problem here, from a literary standpoint, is that without conflict, there’s not much of a story. Chris is one of the best at creating the kind of conflict that works best in an erotic story: inner conflict. The kind of conflict that many a writer has shied away from because it is the most difficult kind to portray believably and intriguingly. The kind of conflict that in science fiction is all too often replaced by external action, a fight, a battle, an explosion.This is why an M. Christian story is not just some of the most excellent, cutting-edge erotica around, but also great science fiction. 

This is also why Chris’s stories quickly found homes outside of the specialized niche of Circlet Press. I started seeing his name in anthologies like Best American Erotica and The Mammoth Book of New Erotica. Since then, I find it hard to name an erotica market or anthology that he is NOT in.The secret is out I don’t think Chris’s manuscripts even go to anyone’s slush pile anymore. (These days they don’t even go to my office; I take them directly into the bedroom.) 

There’s one more person I envy, and that’s the reader who is picking up this book for the first time. Prepare yourself to discover the intense pleasure within. 

    - Cecilia Tan 

    Cecilia Tan is the founder of Circlet Press and author of many works of erotic fiction, including Edge Plays, Royal Treatment, Mind Games, Magic University, The Hot Streak, Black Feathers,White Flames, and Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords.

Just ‘cause, here’s the teasing opening from my cybersex tale, “Speaking Parts” that’s featured in my mechanically themed collection, Rude Mechanicals.  Enjoy!

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Pell remembered seeing Arc’s eye—it was the first thing she’d noticed.

Tourmaline and onyx. Silver and gold. A masterpiece watch set in a crystal sphere, the iris a mandala of glowing gold. Her blinks were a camera shutter’s, as imagined by the archetypal Victorian engineer but built by surgical perfection not found anywhere in Pell’s knowledge. The woman’s left eye was jeweled and precise, clicking softly as the woman looked around the gallery, as if the engineers who’d removed her original wet, gray-lensed ball had orchestrated a kind of music to go with their marvelous creation: a background tempo of perfect watch movements to accompany whatever she saw through their marvelous and finely crafted sight. Click, click, click.

An eye like that should have been in a museum, not mounted in a socket of simple human skin and bone, Pell had thought. It should have been in some other gallery, some better gallery, allowed only to look out at, to see other magnificent creations of skilled hands. Jare’s splashes of reds and blues, his shallow paintings were an insult to the real artistry of the woman’s eye.

That’s what Pell thought, at first, seeing Arc – but only seeing Arc’s perfect, mechanical eye.

Pell didn’t like to remember first seeing her that way – through the technology in her face. But it felt, to her, like it had its own kind of ironic perfection to deny it. So Pell lived with the biting truth that she didn’t, at first, see Arc – for her eye.

But later, right after she got momentarily lost in the beauty of Arc’s implant, the woman looked at Pell with her real eye, the gray, penetrating right one – and Pell forgot about the tourmaline, onyx, silver and gold machine.

She had finally seen Arc, herself – the woman, and not the simple, mechanical part. Next to her, the eye was cheap junk: a collection of metal, old rocks, and wires.

* * * *

She wasn’t Arc at first. She began as just the woman with the perfectly created eye. Then she was the beautiful woman. Then she was the woman where she didn’t belong. Seeing her eye, then seeing her, Pell lastly saw her as oil, the kind of oil you’d see pooling in the street, that had somehow managed to make its way into a glass of wine. Agreed, it was cheap red wine – something out of a box and not even a bottle, but, still – she was oil. She didn’t belong and that was obvious, despite the cheapness of the gallery. She could tell, cataloging her bashed and scuffed boots, noting her threadbare jeans, her torn T-shirt, that amid clean jeans and washed (and too black) turtlenecks, she was a discordant tone among the harmonious poseurs in Jare’s tiny South of Market studio.

The woman was aware of her discrepancy. She wandered the tiny gallery with a very large plastic tumbler of vin very ordinare, stopping only once in a while to look at one of Jare’s paintings.

Holding her wine tight enough to gently fracture the cheap plastic with cloudy stress lines, Pell watched her, stared at the tall – all legs and angles, broad and strong – woman with the artificial eye. She tried not to watch her too closely or too intently, sure that if she let slip her fascination she’d scare her off – or worse, bring on an indifferent examination of Pell. Through a sad ballet of a slightly curved lip and a stare that was nothing more than a glance of the eyes, the woman would see Pell but wouldn’t – and that would be an icy needle in Pell’s heart.

Pell had already taken too many risks that night. She already felt like she’d stepped off the edge and had yet to hit the hard reality of the ground. Traps and tigers, beasts and pitfalls for the unwary loomed all around Pell. She moved through her days with a careful caution, delicately testing the ice in front of her, wary of almost-invisible, murky lines of fault. She knew they were there, she’d felt the sudden falling of knowing she’d stepped too far, moved too quickly, over something that had proven, by intent or accident, not to be there. Pell didn’t push on the surface, didn’t put all her weight, or herself, on anything.

But then everything changed. She’d seen Arc and her eye.

The plastic cup chimed once, then collapsed in on itself. Turning first into a squashed oval, the glass cracked, splintered, then folded, the white seams of stress turning into sharp fissures of breakage. The red, freed of its cheap plastic prison, tumbled, cascaded out and down onto  her.

Pell had worn something she knew wouldn’t fit with the rest of the crowd. The official color of San Francisco, she knew, would fill the place with charcoal and soot, midnight and ebony.  White, she’d decided, would pull some of their eyes to her, make her stand out – absence of color being alone in a room full of people dressed in all colors, combined.

“Looks good on you.”

The shock of the wine on her white blouse tumbled through Pell as an avalanche of warmth flowed to her face. The decision to wear white that night had come from a different part of herself, a part that had surprised her. Now she was furiously chastising that tiny voice, that fashion terrorist who had chosen the blouse over other, blacker ones.

And so Pell responded, “Not as good as you would” to the tall, leggy, broad shouldered girl with the artificial eye. Which was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the rest of her.

* * * *

Pell’s reason for being at the gallery was Jare. Although she could never wrap her perceptions around the gaunt boy’s paintings, she still came when he asked. Jare, Pell, Fallon, Rasp and Jest. They weren’t close – but then foxhole buddies aren’t always. They weren’t in combat, but they could be. All it would take would be one computer talking to another – no stable job history, thus conscription.

All it took were two computers, passing pieces of information back and forth. Till that happened, they hid and watched the possibility of a real foxhole death in a hot, sweaty part of Central America fly by.

Foxhole buddies. It was Jare’s term – some fleck of trivia that’d hung around him. They didn’t have an official name for their tiny society of slowly (and in some cases not too slowly) starving artists, but Pell was sure that Jare would smile at his trivial term being immortalized among a band of too-mortal kids.

That was Jare. While the rest of them tried to focus on pulling their paintings (Pell, Jare, and Rasp), music (Jest), and sculpture (Fallon) as high as they could, there was something else about Jare – something, like his paintings, that refused to be understood. His techniques were simple enough, broad strokes of brilliant color on soot-black canvas, but his reasons were more convoluted.

Or maybe, Pell had thought earlier that evening (before turning a white blouse red and seeing the woman with the artificial eye for the first time) both man and his work were simple: broad, bold statements designed to do nothing but catch attention. He was like his paintings, a grab for any kind of attention – an explanation too simple to be easily seen.

In the tiny bathroom, Pell tried to get the wine out of her blouse. Contradictory old wives’ tails: first she tried cold, then hot water. The sink ran pink and so, soon, did her blouse.

The woman with the eye stood outside the door, a surprisingly subtle smile on her large mouth. Every once and a while she’d say something, as if throwing a bantering line to the shy girl inside to keep her from drowning in embarrassment.

“Who’s he foolin? I can do better crap than this with a brush up my ass.”

“You should see this chick’s dress. Looks like her momma’s – and momma didn’t know how to dress, either.”

“Too many earrings, faggot. What year do you think this is?

“Hey, girl. Get out here with that shirt. It’s better looking than this fucking stuff on the walls.”

Cold water on her hands, wine spiraling down the sink. Distantly, Pell was aware that her nipples were hard and tight – and not from the chill water. Down deep and inside, she was wet. It was a basic kind of primal moisture, one that comes even in the burning heat of humiliation. Finally, the blouse was less red than before. Planning to run to where she’d dropped her old leather coat to hide the stigmata of her clumsiness, her excitement in two hard brown points, she opened the door.

The tall woman smiled down at her, hot and strong. In one quick sweep of her eyes, Pell drank her tall length, strong shoulders, columnar legs. She was trapped, held fast between the hot eyes she knew must have been staring at her, pinning her straight to her embarrassment, and the presence of the woman.

Her eye, the eye, clicked a quick chime of precision – as if expanding its limits to encompass the totality of Pell. Pell did not mind her intense examination. It added, with a rush of feelings, to the quaking in her belly, the weakness in her knees.

“Gotta splash. Wait right here,” Arc said.

Of course she waited.

After a few hammering heartbeats, the door opened and she came out – butchly tucking her T-shirt back into her jeans – and Pell was again at the focus of her meticulously designed sight.

“You live anywhere close? I’m tired of this shit. You?”

“Down the block. Just on the corner,” Pell said, trying hard not to smile too much.

The woman downed the small sample of red in her glass and, looking for a place to put it down, and not finding any, just dropped it with a sharp plastic clatter on the floor. “Show me.  It can’t be worse than here. Too many fucking artists.”

AMPUTATION AND NOVEL PUBLICITY: AUTHOR M. CHRISTIAN THREATENS ONE FOR THE OTHER

PRESS RELEASE: In what is clearly an act of pure desperation, author M. Christian has threatened to amputate part of one finger to publicize his new novel, Finger’s Breadth (Zumaya Books).

“The fact is, it’s getting harder and harder to get the word out about anything new, especially novels,” says M. Christian, whose biography includes over 400 short story sales, nine author collections, the editing of 25 anthologies, and six previous novels.  ”Is it no surprise that writers are having to resort to obvious stunts to try and get their work noticed?”

Though Finger’s Breadth – described as a gay erotic science fiction horror thriller – has garnered respectable reviews, Christian says that it has yet to gain the notoriety he believes it deserves.

“Even with Zee at Firepages saying ‘Finger’s Breadth has a way of getting under your skin and sending chills to your bones in both a terrifying and arousing kind of way. Finger’s Breadth is not a story; it is an experience I highly recommend,’ it’s been too damned hard to get word out about the book.

Christian points out other reviewers who, apparently, have also found the book to be superb: “I’ve got Lisabet Sarai, who says ‘If you’re looking for an easy, sunny, sexy book with a happy ending, don’t pick up Finger’s Breadth. If, on the other hand, you want a scary but enlightening ride through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, I highly recommend this book,’ and the Circlet Press calling it ‘…one of the most psychologically astute erotic novels since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, and it deserves to be just as widely read,’ and even science fiction author Ernest Hogan, who calls it ‘a world of crime, out-of-control passions, mutilation, and madness. Terms like noir and hardboiled don’t quite fit – this is more like ultraviolet, the invisible light that makes the scorpions glow in the dark.’”

As for what the novel is actually about, Christian says that the book’s description as erotic, nightmarish, fascinating, disturbing, intriguing, haunting, you have never read a book like Finger’s Breadth is actually pretty accurate – if a little vague: “There are far too many scary books and movies about serial killers, psychos, nasty supernatural forces … but all of that, to me, is just too removed.  It’s far too easy to be able to say it’s a matter of them – or him – and us: but the real horror I’ve always felt, and tried to explore in Finger’s Breadth is that the real horror is human nature itself.  That, given the right set of circumstances, otherwise good people can have their minds, and most of all their desires, turned inside out.”

And so to try and get the word out about what he feels to be his best novel yet, the reclusive author says that he is willing to step into the light with his most audacious publicity plan ever: to lop off one of his own fingertips

“Okay, my track record for honesty isn’t the best … I’m the first to admit that,” Christian says about his planned amputation.  ”The whole ‘stolen identity’ campaign around Me2 [his previous novel] was lost on more than a few people.  Never mind that it worked and the book sold like hotcakes.  But this time I’m totally, completely, absolutely, honest: I really want people to read Finger’s Breadth … and if it takes lopping off the tip of my little finger then I’m gonna do it,” he says.

When asked if the planned amputation is simply a publicity stunt, Christian responded with faux outrage: “A stunt?  A STUNT?!  Of course it’s a publicity stunt … these days writers have to be creative and, let’s be honest here, more than a bit outrageous if they are going to get noticed.  The book’s about a mysterious figure cutting off the tips of little fingers in a near-future noir San Francisco so a pretend self-amputation is just too damned perfect!”

In answer to his admission that the whole thing is nothing but a publicity-seeking prank, Christian shook his head: “That’s not to say that it still won’t happen; they say that a good writer has at least a few good books in them, so if a finger is all it takes to get the word out about this novel … well, I have 19 more fingers and toes to go.  Seems like a small price to pay.”

M. Christian can be reached at zobop@aol.com or mchristianzobop@gmail.com.  His website is http://www.mchristian.com

To receive a review copy of Finger’s Breadth send an email to publicity@zumayapublications.com.

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More Finger’s Breadth reviews:

It is not that hard to come up with an idea that can be turned into a horror story and that is why horror has been part of the folklore of America and why these stories are so popular on camp-outs as we sit around a campfire. To successfully do this, we need a combination of characters and plot but more important than all else is a novel way to relate the story. For me that is the definition of M. Christian. This book is unlike anything I have read before and I suspect that it will stay with me for quite a while.
– Amos Lassen, reviewer

Finger’s Breadth creates a vivid portrait of a community torn apart by suspicion, where the thrills of hot, anonymous sex go hand in mutilated hand with the chill of fear, and no one is entirely what they seem. M. Christian skillfully mixes a dark, potent cocktail of lust, longing, paranoia and an overwhelming need for acceptance…
– Liz Coldwell, author of Take Your Slave To Work

To be effective, the act of literary intercourse between horror and erotica should be deeply unsettling. It should leave the reader feeling uncomfortable, overwhelmed by equal parts dread and anticipation. M. Christian understands this better than most, weaving a tale that permits the reader but a finger’s breadth of space between fear and arousal. His deft control of the story makes us feel the blade, but it’s his subtle manipulation of our emotions that makes us want the cut.
– Sally Sapphire, Bellasbookslut

M. Christian has seen the future – and it is hardboiled! If you love crime stories – gay or otherwise – and you love science fiction, you will love Finger’s Breadth. No other storyteller nails it quite like M. Christian does. This is a real page turner.
– Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of Freak Parade

M. Christian is a force to be reckoned with. Just when you think you understand the path that his narrative and characters are taking, Christian throws a monkey wrench, or a limb, or a head into the works and you have to get your bearings and start all over again. No matter which book of his you pick up, prepare for an intoxicatedly weird ride.
– Ily Goyanes, author and filmmaker

Finger’s Breadthis mesmeric storytelling, riveting in execution and appalling in implication.  M. Christian’s tale of erotic terror in a near-future San Francisco is imagined so skillfully that it grabs the reader with its easy familiarity, then refuses to let go as it careens to its shocking yet completely believable conclusion.  Evoking such Grand Masters as Armistead Maupin, Thomas Harris and Rod Serling while remaining strikingly original, Finger’s Breadth is Christian at the height of his considerable powers.  Like Charon the ferryman, the author takes the reader down the dark rivers of human sexuality and shows us things that would normally never see the light of day.  Ultimately the most compelling aspect of this fiction is how fascinatingly and terrifyingly plausible it is. Finger’s Breadthshould come with a warning label: Read this before clubbing.
– Christopher Pierce, author of Rogue Slave, Rogue Hunted, and Kidnapped By A Sex Maniac

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M. Christian is – among many things – an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and Web sites.

He is the editor of 25 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, Pirate Booty, My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant) as well as many others.

He is the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Coming Together Presents M. Christian, Pornotopia, How To Write And Sell Erotica; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, Fingers Breadth, and Painted Doll.  His site is http://www.mchristian.com.

Fingers Breadth
Zumaya Books
Paperback: $15.99
ebook: $6.99
ISBN-10: 1934841463
ISBN-13: 978-1934841464

Check this out: I just wrote a brand new “Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker” piece for the always-great Erotica Readers & Writers site - all my previous columns, of course, have been collected in How To Write And Sell Erotica by Renaissance Books.  Here’s a tease:

This is simply beyond wonderful: check out this very touching review of Fingers Breadth by Zee of Firepages.  Swoon!

Someone is abducting young gay men in San Francisco, drugging them and cutting off the tip of their pinky. The entire city if on edge, especially after dark. The gay community fear for themselves, as they know that anyone could be next. Even though the police are looking for the Cutter, no one really knows who this person is nor the motivation of cutting a finger. Suspicion divides the community. There are people who have only nine-and-a-half fingers, and those who have ten fingers. The niners suspect the Cutter may have ten fingers and those who walk around with ten fingers hope they are not next.  

M. Christian has to be the most amazing writer I’ve ever read. He is a master manipulator with his words. You read his stories and begin to feel exactly what he wants you to feel - arousal, desire, anger, fear, hope. Readers find themselves surprised to feel this way, yet it is M. Christian’s way of pulling dormant and primal emotions out of you. And the crazy part is that you don’t mind embracing these perverse feelings as you are that pulled into the story. Not only does M. Christian push his characters in his stories to their limits, but he also pushes his readers minds to meet him in these faraway places. 

I loved how M. Christian addressed multiple facets of storytelling, like horror, thriller, and societal issues. The way the community split between those with 9.5 and 10 fingers was genius, and the horrible experience that the victims go through is downright chilling. Finger’s Breadth has a way of getting under your skin and sending chills to your bones in both a terrifying and arousing kind of way. Finger’s Breadth is not a story; it is an experience I highly recommend.