Erotic Romance and Domination

The Mammoth Book of Erotic Romance and Domination, released a couple of months ago and edited by Maxim Jakubowski, features two, brand new stories of mine, both of which involve sex and death, but in very different ways.

This super-hot anthology offers original fic from a host of new and well-established writers, including bestselling Eighty-Days author, Vina Jackson, and KD Grace, Justine Elyot, Remittance Girl and more!

My two stories are How to Get Sex When You’re Dead and Seven Stripes of Colour. Below is the opening of How to.

I’ll aim to post an excerpt from Seven Stripes soonish.

How to Get Sex When You’re Dead

I never considered myself a voyeur but there’s not much else to do when you’re dead. We hang out at cloud-level, shooting the breeze and watching what’s going on down below. I wish I could talk to Gabe. He might sleep better if he knew I hadn’t cashed in my chips and there was still some residue hanging around, or “soul” if you want to be romantic. Then again, if Gabe knew how frustrating it was to be incorporeal and horny, he’d be desperately sad for me, so it’s probably best I keep schtum.

Oh, but I have heaps to tell him, like: Dying really hurts! But trust me, Gabe, the pain’s gone in a flash. Your pain-memory gets wiped and nothing lingers. Losing your body is the weirdest sensation. Oh Gabe, I hope you get to keep yours till you’re old and grey. Look after it, won’t you? Mine’s gone for good and like I say, the transition’s so weird. One moment I’m being ripped apart from the inside, my mouth filling with blood, the next I’m totally spaced out, seeping into the ether and rising on a high no drugs could match.

As I slipped away, I gazed down at the Honda, upright but crushed, and at the mess I’d made of my face. Behind the shattered glass, I was as still as a mannequin, looking so peaceful despite the violence done to my body. Bizarrely, at the moment of impact I had a flashback of standing before the bathroom mirror that morning, choosing a lipstick I didn’t often wear. I’d tipped the tube to check the shade: Fast Ride. Later, I wondered if I’d chosen the lipstick thanks to my sassy mood or if reading the name had subliminally affected me, causing me to keep my foot on the pedal as I rounded the bend. This might sound shallow but, either way, I’m pleased I went toes up with a plum-dark pout.

I didn’t think this at the time, oh no! I wasn’t pleased about anything. My main thought before bliss engulfed me, was: Shit, shit, shit! Why so fast, Emily?

I begged to have those last few seconds back, promising whoever was up there I’d get it right this time. But no fucker was listening. You don’t get it back. Life’s not a rehearsal, as they say.

I also want to tell Gabe I’m sorry about that night in Antigua when I said things I shouldn’t after my seventh caipirinha. Plus, I have — I have? I had? Grammar’s so hard when you’re a ghost — I had a secret bank account with £18, 000 in. The statements go to my sister’s but I’d like Gabe and the kids to have the money. That was my running-away fund. I had no plans to run away, I swear, but my mother used to say every woman should have a running-away fund. Oh, and there’s another thing. I’d like to apologize to my mum for dying before her. That’s not the correct order of events, I know. I fucked up. Fast Ride.

But I can’t do any of this. I’m voiceless and I’m bodiless. I can see them but they can’t see me. I’m not omniscient but it’s close. I can see everyone I ever knew, and by Christ, but there’s a lot of you, too many to keep up with. I follow those who meant the most to me, or (and this is my guilty pleasure) those who are pure entertainment. It’s like Twitter but for dead people. No one follows me.

And that’s the awful part because I’m following a guy I dated in my twenties, Ash Akbari. I doubt he remembers me but I never forgot him. Hey, Ash! I was the annoying brunette who liked to make a drama out of a crisis out of nothing much at all. I was a tad screwy back then, and I’m sorry. Then again, you weren’t exactly Mr Sane, were you? Oh, but wow, haven’t you grown? If I had the ability to be moist, I’d be soaked and swollen, my body opening in readiness for your cock. However, as things stand, I have desire and it swirls most intensely somewhere below my seat of consciousness. Damned if I can relieve the itch though. I have no hands, see?

Oh, let me tell you about Ash. (I’m sorry, Gabe! I love you madly but I don’t think this counts as cheating, and I’m sure you’d understand.) Ash was stunning. He was Anglo-Iranian, and had inky, collar length curls he would tuck behind his ears. His cheekbones hung on a perfect slant, and his intense, Persian eyes were teal-green ringed with black. He looked as if he could read minds with those eyes. Maybe he could. I used to imagine he was someone who could get under my skin. But I was young. I didn’t want him under my skin. Or rather I did, but didn’t want to admit that. I was trying to be cool and invulnerable. Besides, if I’d let him under my skin, he most likely would have stayed awhile and tried to destroy me. Ash liked to cause suffering; that was part of the attraction. I was needy and attention-seeking. I liked to suffer. I liked to blame. I liked to fight.

He ran me a bath. We’d been arguing and fucking all afternoon at his place and in the evening, I said I fancied a soak. The water was too hot. I dipped my toe in and yelped. I reached for the cold tap but he stopped me by grabbing hold of my hair. His fist was by the nape of my neck and he tilted my head back. His voice was by my ear. “I don’t care if it’s too fucking hot,” he said. His words were so close I might have been making them up myself, hearing voices inside my head. “Get in.”

I was knocked by a rush of arousal so acute my legs nearly buckled. The threatening tone in his voice, not to mention the nastiness of his order, got me right where it shouldn’t. My lust confused the hell out of me. I didn’t like that I liked it, and I don’t think Ash liked that he liked it either.

“You serious?” I said.

He released me. “Nah, just messing.” He ran the cold tap then waggled his fingers in the water. “It’s fine now.”

I was disappointed. I’d wanted him to respond to my reticence by continuing with his bossiness. I’d wanted him to force me to take pain for his pleasure. Maybe not a hot bath but you know, a sexy thing. We had another row later that night, something and nothing. I do know it was my fault though. I pushed it, baiting him to get angry because I wanted to be subjected to his aggression again. I was an emotional masochist, re-routing an unexplored taste for pain into a more acceptable outlet, that of being a pain-in-the-butt girlfriend. But as I say, Ash wasn’t comfortable with his dark side either. We were young, too scared of revealing ourselves in case we got rejected.

But hey, not anymore! I’m dead, I’m twisted and I’m horny! What have I got to lose?

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