Writings and ramblings

Today I’d like to welcome Isabelle Rowan as my second guest blogger from Under the Southern Cross. Come on down!

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A story set in Australia about Australian men sounds easy enough right? Well, that’s what I thought…

The problems really began when I tried to pin down an aspect or notion of ‘Aussie-ness” to write about. Where do I start? How do I get across who we are when we’re all so different? More importantly, how do I avoid the stereotypes? So, no Crocodile Dundee, even though I wanted to do something about the outback! Hmm….

One of the themes I really wanted to explore is our relationship to the land. There is something about Australia that conjures images of red earth, vast landscapes and endless skies, yet most of us live in cities or suburbs. Since migrating to Australia in the 1960’s I’ve lived my life as a suburb dweller, far away from the deserts of central Oz. I walk on footpaths, meet friends in cafes and do all the things that happen in most other countries, but the land is often there in the back of my mind, nibbling away at my dreams and reminding me to walk barefoot now and then. Sure I’ll admit I’m an old pagan, but I honestly believe that the land is there within us all if we are willing or able to look.
So that’s where I started.

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Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

An intense kiss. An excerpt from Meadow which appears in Smut Alfresco. A kiss, yes, but not safe for work.

They finished eating, and before she could put the lids on any containers, he kissed her. It was a lovely, leaping kiss, him springing towards her, catching her by surprise so she squealed and laughed against his mouth, tumbling backwards so her head landed in the grass just off the blanket. He raised up, grinning like a child, and rained kisses down her neck, making her giggle and wriggle. B cupped her hand behind his head, holding him to her, a sudden desperation for him clenching her body. Lucas didn’t seem to notice. He kept kissing her neck, playful, gleeful, until B had enough and dragged him up so she could capture his mouth.

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Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

I’m pleased to announce I have two new releases available!

First, a short story, Oasis Beckoning. Fantasy erotica, with a most unusual pairing – man, and a pool of water…

Nearly dead from thirst and the sun, a man fled through the desert. Just when he believed he could no longer go on, he stumbled upon a deep pool in a jungle at the edge of the wasteland. The water soothed his parched throat and gave comfort to his burnt skin. Then, that which lived in the pool gave him a stranger and altogether more intimate kind of comfort.

Oasis Beckoning is available from Forbidden Fiction – you can go there for an excerpt and assorted buy links.

Next, my short story ‘Meadow’ can be read in the new erotica anthology Smut Alfresco, edited by Lucy Felthouse and Victoria Blisse, a collection of outdoor-themed erotica. ‘Meadow’ is set on Grantchester Meadows in Cambridge, where I live, but you can find a whole host of other, intriguing settings and stories in the anthology.

An excerpt of ‘Meadow’ can be read here on this site.

Smut Alfresco can be bought at the following places:

• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com
• All Romance eBooks

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

Like a clap of thunder, the music stops. The DJ shouts “Fuck!” and the dance floor is restless rather than pumping, edgy and discordant rather than in harmony. There are calls of ‘what just happen!’ and the DJ still cursing about a technical glitch, and everyone waits. The lights are garish without the accompanying beats.

Jeroen’s hand squeezes her shoulder, Orhan fingers dig into her back, and a chill falls over her body.

There are times like this when she freezes, and she feels herself watching the scenario play out before her, rather than participating. Where she doesn’t see herself as in control, as teasing and stroking the men either side of her, but as the meat in the sandwich, as someone – or even something – who could be tossed between two uncaring men like a toy, whose arms and legs could be pulled off on a whim, and the sight of her limbless would be amusing rather than cause for sympathy.

She stills herself, eyes down, not meeting either Orhan or Jeroen’s. She doesn’t need their reassure, not right not. She needs for them to relax their hold on her, needs to break out from the cage of their arms. Her breathing becomes more rapid, her chest heaving. She rolls her shoulder under Jeroen’s hand, hoping, hoping she’ll get away without needing to fight… and his hand flexes, not quite away, but he asks, in a normal voice, now capable of being heard in room, “You ok?”

She looks up, meeting Orhan’s eyes first. He stares down, frowning, concerned. The pressure of his fingers ease, and instead he rubs her back. Jeroen likewise rubs her shoulder, rough enough to be friendly. She turns to both of them, smiling, feeling the air in the space between them, freer once more.

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Next: 49. Nibble

Image found on flickr, by Brandon Fick, used under the Creative Commons License.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

Orhan lets go of her hands, moves them to her waist. His fingers rest at the place were her stomach ends and her hips begin; a place, she’s always thought, that marks where touching above is gentlemanly, and below is sexy. It’s the perfect place, she thinks, for him to linger for a while, between chivalrous and seductive.

The music changes, a slow beat, its rhythm lulling, almost soft. The kind that makes her step gently from one foot to the other, a slight shift in weight rather than taking her foot the ground. Jeroen in front of her falls in pace with her, while Orhan moves his knees; she feels his thighs bump softly against the back of her own.

The music starts to seep under her skin. Her pulse falls in with the beat, or so it seems, for it throbs right through her, from the base of her neck to her clit. The lights too flash in time, and the three of them, together, sway like they are connected by more than clutching hands and sensual desire. For a moment, she closes her eyes, and she enjoys the warmth of the two men, and the surrounding sound.
When she opens them, Jeroen tries to move closer, but she shakes her head, lolling it in time to the music.

“Take it slow, take it slow,” she says, exaggerating her lips so he can read them, so she doesn’t have to shout.

Jereon rolls his eyes, but with humour, and keeps that tiny distance that would take only a nudge from someone passing by to close. Though it is like they are in a bubble, enclosed and separated by a membrane of light and sound waves from the other dances, moving in time with them, but not able to touch.

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Next: 47. Undulate

Image found on flickr, by Brandon Fick, used under the Creative Commons License.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

Jeroen blinks, and she realises that he hadn’t noticed Orhan attached to her. His expression sours, and he starts to slide away. She grips his hand tighter, steps towards him, Orhan in sync with her. She looks back at Orhan – his teeth are bright white in the flashes of light, and his eyes are open, accepting, while Jereon’s face is hard, irritated.

“More fun with three,” she says, adding a chuckle to make it seem the most obvious thing in the world.

But Jereon doesn’t respond directly.

She watches as the instinctive unwillingness to share flash across his face. His eyes looking on her greedily, possessively, and flicking with annoyance back at Orhan. But she keeps Orhan’s hand close to herself, holding it near the top of her thigh, and she looks up at Jeroen, unable to keep the begging from her eyes, but steely enough to let him know that this is all or nothing.

Orhan shuffles closer to her, and she can sense from how near he is that he will not need convincing. Jeroen purses his lips, and looks between her and Orhan. But he hasn’t let go of her hand, so she ducks her head a little bit, her eyes casting down, and she peers back up through her eye lashes, demure, pliant, and her body almost shudders when Jeroen drops her hand, and grabs her shoulders, pulling him to her with Orhan pressing in behind her.

“You’re too kind,” she says, teasing, not to let him know she was ever worried that he might say no.

“Just shut up and dance,” he says, wry, a fraction perturbed, as if his pride has taken a tiny blow.

Not because he’s had to share her, but because, in the battle of wills, she won.

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Next: 46. Sway

Image found on flickr, by Dr Stephen Dann, used under the Creative Commons License.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

Red by the River first appeared in Filament magazine, Issue 7, Volume II, December 2010. It was my first professional publication, and in a magazine whose philosophy I fully support(ed – they have unfortunately closed, which is a real shame.)

This short piece is about art, sunsets, and lovely red-headed young men, and is approximately 2200 words long. Also, erotica, and not safe for work images.

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Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

This is a short story I had published in the University of Sydney literary magazine, Hermes, back in 2004. My first ever fiction publication, which was pretty exciting, and I got some prize money for it too. I still have the dress I bought with that money too…

Note: It isn’t erotica (gasp!) and there is an act of animal cruelty.

Word count: 1800

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They lived in a house by the ocean, and on the weekends, when Liliana and Gabriel didn’t have to go to school, Seth and Janey sometimes let them go down to the beach and play. This day, when Seth had told them it was alright, they squealed wildly.

Janey rubbed some white sunscreen into their backs. “Now remember-”

“Put the sun-scream on every hour,” Gabriel said, eyes rolling.

Liliana laughed. “Its sunscreen, not sunscream, you silly.” Gabriel blushed a little.

Under their feet, the sand was so hot that they had to skip and hop down to the water. Liliana ran around in circles, pretending to be a bird, while Gabriel slowly padded down to the water’s edge.

“Dueling Game!” Liliana declared, standing ready with the eucalyptus branch she’d torn off the tree earlier that morning. Gabriel nodded, but his arm shook as he held his much thinner branch against hers.

Each time, Liliana won.

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Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

Diarmuid’s gaze swivels in Xavier’s direction, and he frowns.

“Right. That’s a problem.” He glances back at her, and then cocks his head at his two friends remaining at the table.

“Have fun.”

She thinks he means it. Almost.

Diarmuid leaves with his pint, Xavier oblivious to his approach. She can’t decide if this will be a train wreck or a dance, so stops watching, and turns her attention back to Orhan and Jeroen.

Jeroen chuckles. “Diarmuid finally doing something about that crush of his. At long last…”

Orhan nudges Jeroen, and he just smirks.

“I guess it is just us then…” Jeroen says. He shifts back on the bar chair, opening out his body. She acts on the cue, and stands to move over a few seats so she next to Jeroen and opposite Orhan.
And then, the mood sways as the lights change colour.

The friendliness between Orhan and Jeroen doesn’t vanish, but they are now not looking at each other. They lean forward, elbows out on the table – firm, a bit forceful – as if to edge the other out of her field of vision. It is unlikely that they imagine that it has served to make them loom larger in her eyes.

The men each try to steer the conversation – so much so that her attempts at words are lost as the one tries to one up the other, be the more witty or charming or cocky or whatever they think she will find appealing. It has the effect of deflecting attention from her, inviting her instead to watch the verbal sparring, the attempts to glare each other down while pretending that this is not what they are doing. It’s almost coy and feminine, but for the fact that their bodies are tough and able to make this physical.

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Next: 42. Orhan

Image found on flickr, by Tim Parkinson, used under the Creative Commons License.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

He smiles, a little jolly, which takes her aback.

“It’s cool. Glad a girl knows what she wants and how to get it. Only, you’ve got no hope with me.”

She turns her head sideways, flirtatious and teasing. “Is that a challenge?”

“No, statement of fact. I’m gay.”

She knows her face has become fixed, trying to mask not so much disappointment, but the inward kick she’s giving herself for not having realised. Unfortunately, Diarmuid can see the exact trajectory of the kick, and he becomes smug again.

“Oh that poor gaydar of yours…”

She makes her best rueful expression, and gives his arm a playful nudge. “Hush. Take it as a compliment I was considering you.”

“Hmm. I suspect you’d consider most men, even if briefly.”

A genuine flicker of hot angry boils in her chest

“Not saying that it’s a bad thing—”

“But you don’t mind me thinking that you think it is.” The words are said through her teeth. He probably can’t even hear her, but he must catch her meaning.

His jaw locks as he swallows, frowning at her. “Alright. I’m an arse sometimes.”

She waits a long moment, before saying, “Apology accepted.”

Diarmuid raises his beer bottled, and she her cocktail glass.

About half a minute after their peace treaty, she speaks, feigned coyness. “So you’re not even up for an experiment?”

Diarmuid chuckles. “Not me. Xavier would, but go anywhere near him and I’m not afraid to fight dirty. He’s mine tonight.”

She looks over to where Xavier is talking with Square Glasses. Xavier’s face is animated as the other guy does the talking, the kind of interest you show to someone to indicate your rapt attention.

She looks back at Diarmuid, and indicates over her shoulder. “You sure about that?”

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Next: 41. Competition

Image found on flickr, by Bruno Girin, used under the Creative Commons License.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.