#Bedtime! And I almost forgot you! #spshow #erotica

Another day flew by and I never even thought about you! I know that sounds heartless, selfish even, but it's the cold truth. I know we haven't really met, haven't even exchanged a word, but I feel I know you. I have been writing for you for years, thinking what you might enjoy, imagining how I can hook you, reel you in... I'll stop there before my baser instincts take over my tapping finger. But I think you get the idea. Now, tell me if I've read you right, sussed you out, got your number... Go on. Read what I wrote for you and tell me I'm not a mind-reader, a future-teller, a clairvoyant, even though - as Michael Bublé said in his Bublé rap: 'I just haven't met you yet!'

Inversion 1

Beginnings

Extract #15

The entire planet was encircled by savage storms. Clouds of swirling orange dust ravaged the surface. Rare pockets of stillness, the eyes of biblical hurricanes, afforded us glimpses of white poles and vast expanses of desert. Instruments predicted no life, but gave me twenty-three possible landing sites where death was least likely. Where the hell had I brought us?

For want of a better idea, I chose a location with a latitude closest to my home on Earth. Home! How I missed my island, my beautiful island, where, as fate would have it, the greatest scientific mind in history was born. That fluke of nature had given us the edge, had kept us in front. When the killing stopped, she was dead and the Earth was dead, but the war was won - her terrible genius had won it for us. And so here we were. Here I was. Running from the destruction to start life again. How much we owe to fate and how little to our own efforts.

'Computer, you have the co-ordinates?'

'Yes.' 

'Then let's do this.' I glanced at the tall blonde standing patiently on my right. 'Erica?'

'Yes, Captain?'

'Get everyone into stasis. I'll need only two crew to help me. Choose for me. Get them to report to me as soon as possible.'

'Carmel and I have volunteered...'

'No! Not you. You're second in command. If anything happens to me, the crew will need you alive. I'll take Carmel and one other.'

'Captain, I...'

'That's an order. Do it!' I softened my voice and winked. 'I can barely wait till we land. Therapy never felt so good.'

She coloured slightly, smiled wistfully and saluted.

'Aye, aye, Captain.'

The bridge slowly emptied and soon I was alone. Instruments flickered. Stasis pods were filling. One thousand nine hundred. And fifty. And eighty. Two thousand. And twenty. Thirty. Five. Six. Seven...

'Carmel and Jane reporting for duty, Sir.'

I looked over my shoulder at the two volunteers. Regulation orange overalls couldn't hide the fact they were both very attractive women. Petite and feminine, they each stood about five feet four tall in their black plimsolls. Jane's unruly red hair was tied back, while Carmel's orange spikes needed no such taming. Their faces were very different, yet equally pretty; their eyes intense and intelligent. Both were around twenty years of age. Despite their youth, their conduct since waking from stasis told me they were tough and dependable, perfect for the job. In that endearing way of hers, Carmel wrinkled her freckled nose before speaking.

'Stasis Deck is ready. Eighteen hundred pods already activated. Two hundred and thirty-nine sedated, awaiting activation.'

'Thank you. Computer?'

'Yes, Captain?'

'Activate stasis in the newly-filled pods.'

'Activated.'

Jane addressed me.

'What are our duties, Captain?'

'Initially, I simply want you to talk.'

'Talk?'

She was incredulous.

'Yes. Talk to the computer. Keep her focussed. Keep her occupied. I believe that will give Maxi less chance to break through. Once we land, wake the Wakers. Start with Erica. If anything happens to me, she will take command. Now strap yourselves in, girls. It's going to be a bumpy ride.'

The women nodded, shared worried looks then installed themselves on the black padded seats on either side of me. They buckled up and got to work.

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

#Naked #erotica blog gets desperate! And Inversion 1 excerpt 14 #spshow

When I want to write, it's easy. I grab my iPad, pick up a pen, open Pages on my trusty iPhone and simply do it. When I fancy sex, it's not so easy. I can't grab a guy, pick up a bloke or a trusty friend and simply do it. And I sometimes wonder why not. Why can't our sexual needs be easily slaked, just as our other physical needs - hunger, thirst - be slaked? Why can't I open my front door, dressing gown subtly gaping, and hail that young chap who daily jogs down the street?

'Excuse me! Oi! You in the Lycra and bobble hat! Yes, you! Fancy a shag?'

Sounds easy, doesn't it? I'm fit enough, pretty enough, lean yet curvy enough, to hook him, to reel him in and fuck him (sorry, my base needs overcame the need to complete the fishy metaphor - but the rhyme just about justifies it).

I'm going to do it. Today. He should be here in ten minutes or so. A quick shower, a quick shave of the legs and other bits, and I'm ready. No need for clothes. Or maybe my favourite crimson bra and knickers, so the colour grabs his eyes as the dressing gown falls just open enough. I'll let you know what I decided and how it goes. Meanwhile, a snippet of my book, in which a woman takes command and does exactly what I'm about to do... wish me luck!

Inversion 1

Beginnings

Excerpt #14

In seconds she was naked and so was I. We each took a single step forwards and our bare bodies touched. Tits pressed to my chest and her knee edged between my thighs. It felt so wrong and yet it was a blissful necessity. Her flesh was deliciously warm and smooth. Soft strong hands were all over me. Wasting no time, she closed her fist tightly around my cock and pulled back violently, bending the stiff shaft and obscenely baring the head. Long nails dug into my flesh. I winced with pain, but it was a pain I needed. A pain I somehow deserved. I reciprocated by pinching and twisting her nipples. They were large, in total contrast to her small breasts, and their darkness stood out against her pale skin like cherries on iced cakes. I bit her there, sucked them like a starving child until she cried out and pushed my head away. 

The growl in my ear carried a crude ferocity I could scarcely believe.

‘Fuck my ass. I want it up there. Fuck me hard, so it hurts. I want you to hurt me.’

Her teeth teased my neck, nipped my chest, then bit the taut muscles of my belly, while her nails scraped down my back and clawed at my buttocks. Sinking her tight arse into the edge of the bed, she stroked my shaft and slurped on my balls, then took me so far down her throat I thought she would choke. As I fucked her mouth, my hands worked her firm tits. She parted her thighs and I craned my neck to watch her right hand dip between them and spread her dripping juices across her smooth shaven skin. I stared in awe as she peeled open her whorled lips and began feverishly finger fucking herself. She reached back between her buttocks and smeared her slippery fingers across her anus. The anticipation almost swept me over the edge. 

'Oh, fuck... stop... stop!'

She spat out my cock and snarled.

‘Do me! Now! I’m ready.’

She turned over, knelt on the edge of the bed, pulled open her cheeks and offered herself to me. Her arse was slick with her lubrication. Beneath the dark puckered hole, her pink gash glistened. It was incredibly inviting, but her arsehole was unequivocally where my cock belonged; anal sex never felt so right, not before nor since. 

I spat into my palm, smeared it onto my shiny tip, and pressed it against her anus. With a grunt, she pushed back onto me. My shaft flexed then the head opened her, stretched her, and eagerly slid inside. The pillow muffled her long, low moan as I grasped her slender hips and inched into her bowels. When my full length was buried inside her, I rested my body against her buttocks and stroked her arched spine. A shiver ran through her and she whimpered. The pleasure burned so intensely, I almost came, had to clench my pelvic muscles to prevent premature flow. My knees shook and breaths were quick and shallow.

‘Spank me!’

The words were hurled like rocks over her shoulder.

'Erica, I...'

'Spank me!' She was insistent. My palm cracked against her taut flesh. ‘Harder!' The next blow forced expletives though her clenched teeth. 'Fuck! You cunt!' She snatched several rasping lungfuls of air. 'Fucking harder!’

Each blow left a fresh mark till her cheeks glowed deep red and my hand stung. It shames me now to say it, but I knew she was crying. Every blow and every thrust was hurting her. Hurting me too. Despite that, it was cathartic and I couldn’t stop. Nor did she want me to. We had shared an unbearable sorrow, now we joined in a torturous and debased frenzy, baring our souls, abusing our bodies, emptying our minds. Cleansing ourselves with the fires of hell.

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

More #naked #erotica blogging and Inversion 1, excerpt 13

For your further delectation, I have another short extract from my forthcoming novel, Inversion 1, an erotic sci-fi blockbuster. For the story so far, see previous blogs - if you can't be bothered to keep up, you really don't deserve my help! Oh, okay. A crippled spaceship, thousands of light years from Earth, carries the last survivors of humanity. Half the crew of 4,000 - a number which constitutes almost all the men - are dead, the computer has lost its marbles, and there appears to be no planet suitable to land on. Alex5, the captain, prepares to say a final farewell to the dead.

Inversion 1

Beginnings

Excerpt # 13

Suddenly, inexcusably, my cock twitched and prodded her belly. I stepped away, embarrassed, but she pulled me to her again and kissed my mouth. It was all too fast for me to resist. Her whisper was hoarse and barely audible.

‘No… don’t worry… It's not just you; I feel it too. I'm incredibly turned on.'

'Erica, I... I'm sorry. I don't...'

'Don't apologise, Alex.'

Grief contorted her face, but she fought it. A fragile beauty returned. I hugged her once more, spoke gently into her ear.

''We've survived a devastating event. It’s that bond, I think, that pulls us together.' 

'Yes. You're right. I've felt it ever since you woke me.'

'You did incredible work. Thank you.'

'The training took over, blanked out everything, including the pain. Now it's all over, I feel...'

She bit her lip, steeled herself against a tsunami of sorrow. I whispered in her ear.

'I know. Counselling will help you. It will take time. And lots of it. If ever you need to talk...'

'What about you? Who do you turn to?' 

Her question took me aback.

'No one. As captain, it's my duty, my responsibility...'

'Do you pray?'

That brought a smile to my lips. Yes, I sometimes issued silent pleas aimed at no one in particular. And sometimes, as many did, I used the word God as part of an expression of surprise or disgust. But surely, after what we'd all been through, no one actually prayed?

'Not since I was a child.'

'Then who will share your pain?'

Her concern was palpable and the question apposite. Guilt was eating at me. And it was growing. Sleep was riddled with nightmares, while waking hours were punctuated by violent flashbacks.

'I'll cope. I'm captain. It's who I am; what I am.'

'Coping is not enough. It will destroy you. We both need to exorcise the memories; need to rid ourselves…’

Erica took my hand and pulled me towards the door that led to my adjoining living quarters. I resisted, not sure I understood what was happening.

'Everyone here is going through this, too. Many are still...'

I was about to say 'grieving', but that wasn't strong enough a word; it would have been an affront, both to her son's memory and her grief. I knew his death had all but destroyed her. Her eyes were pleading.

'Alex, don't deny me. I need this. I know you need it too.'

She stroked the bulge in my groin and I backed away, all the while shaking my head.

‘I’m sorry, Erica, this isn’t the time…’

But I was overpowered by her need - and by my own. She tugged my hand again and I surrendered, simply followed her to my bedroom. 

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

My #naked #erotica #blog and #spshow

Upon viewing my Google+ cover picture (shown above, and also my choice of background on Twitter: @alexamalova), one reader asked if I always write in that state of undress. I naturally and naturistically replied, 'Always!'. Whether sitting primly in the park, or lounging lasciviously on public transport, I am gloriously unadorned, my delectable curves and delicious crevices on full unadulterated view. I insist too that all adult passers-by and fellow travellers are similarly unbedecked, their pert/dangling tits and smooth/unshaven pudenda, their erect/flaccid cocks and tight/swinging scrotal sacks, are al fresco and open to plebeian perusal. See the hot blush on cheeks, the wetted lips, the dilated irises, and the arousal made liquid; dangling obscenely from the purple tip; hiding longingly between squirming thighs. I raise my trembling fingers, tap the rigid impatient keys, and flare my nostrils as the resultant dancing symbols strum my hot wet hunger.

As you can see, I have to be naked to write. And you, dear reader, so you have to be naked to read. Peel off those inhibiting clothes, disrobe your prudish mind and curl up beside me and enjoy me... enjoy me till your enjoyment overflows.

Sex machine

The machine was built for pleasure. Independent of external forces, it rocked and rolled, ebbed and flowed on cushioning foam and silent springs. Touching parts were exquisitely oiled so they moved freely, yet still maintained sufficient contact. A delicious necessary friction.

The machine was tireless, drew on an infinite primeval power source. Its cycles were random, yet pre-determined, continually oscillating from frenzy to stillness, from cacophony to silence. As overload threatened, it again returned to a near-stationary state. After a moment's calm, it cautiously accelerated, soon reaching a plateau of steady, insistent rhythm. And there it stayed, effortlessly feeding off it its own momentum.

The machine was soft, warm, angular and smooth. It was powerful. Irresistible. It sang, it breathed, it quivered, and cried. It was self-adjusting, self-feeding, self-serving. It cooled itself with glistening drops of saline that sprang from every living surface.

The machine was flexible, adaptable, could achieve its purpose in many ways with many modes of construction. It had been tested to destruction, had been stripped and rebuilt many times. It was intelligent, could function in many environments, adapting to available space with imaginative arrangements of its parts. It was timeless, yet very much of the moment.

I was half of that machine and she completed it. And when complete, it required nothing but instinct to fulfil its purpose. No metals, plastics, sand or glass. No coal, electricity, plutonium or gas. The fuel and raw materials were already contained within its living parts. It was a kind of miracle. When separated, each half of it was helpless, hopeless. Useless. Together we were beautiful, incredible. Amazing.

She was ready: prone, naked and vulnerable. I too was ready: naked, hard and primed. I mounted her, engaged with her. We clicked. My firm shaft entered her exquisite slippery tightness and at that moment we became one. In stillness we tested every point of contact and support. Then a kiss, a silent, knowing exchange, and we began to move. She clung to me, sucked on me then contracted as though fighting to expel me. We battled momentarily, then simultaneously surrendered to an ancient natural rhythm. It resonated through us, tamed us and conjoined us. Like liquid, we flowed. The bed forgave us. The fluid air shifted and encapsulated us. The machine came alive. It fucked itself.

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

Inversion 1, excerpt 12 #erotica #spshow

Hi

Nothing to say today except here's the next excerpt from my sexy sci-fi novel, Inversion 1. 

Story so far:

The last humans have escaped Earth and travelled through space, frozen in time in stasis pods, for seven thousand years. The captain, Alex5 wakes to find that half the crew - almost all the men - are dead. In its lengthy isolation, the computer has apparently gone mad, is probably responsible for the deaths and has ejected the reactor core. The survivors are therefore stuck in an inhospitable system with little chance of landing safely and little chance of future survival even if they do. After a brief sleep, Alex heads for the refectory and decides to tell the crew exactly how things stand.

Inversion 1

Beginnings

Excerpt #12

'Here are the facts. We have been travelling for over seven thousand years.' The room filled with gasps of disbelief. 'It's true. Trust me. If there's anyone left on Earth, their records will show we left around six million years ago.' I waited till the figures sank in then softened my voice. 'The deaths onboard this ship were due to computer error. The computer has also ejected the main reactor core. This system is now our home, whether we like it or not. 

'The computer has... malfunctioned. Some might even say "evolved".' There were angry growls of disbelief. 'Please, hear me out. No one imagined such a journey - no one considered the effect such a time span would have on her. The loneliness. The isolation. She has developed a parallel personality called Maxi, and it is Maxi who caused the deaths. Not purposefully, I hasten to add, but now she fears being switched off. The fear may cause her to lash out in self-defence. I won't lie to you: our lives are in the balance. 

'The computer - as we knew her - and Maxi seem to take turns - while one operates the ship, the other sleeps. We have to land now while Maxi is sleeping. The computer says planet three in the system looks most likely, but I think we'll head for the fourth.'

Erica's rich voice resonated through the hard space.

'Why, Captain?'

I shrugged.

'Because it was Maxi's choice. I have a gut feeling that if Maxi wakes, it might be the key that gets us down alive and keeps us alive.'

'How's that?'

It was Jane who spoke. Her green eyes pierced me, unnerved me - they reminded me of Emma. Emma's intelligent eyes had always sparkled, but Jane's seemed to shine even more.

'If she knows I trust her then she may trust me too. She is the key to our survival. I'll try anything, everything I can.'

Jane swept her long red hair over her shoulder and spoke again.

'Are the women in stasis safe? How do we know Maxi won't kill them? Won't kill all of us?'

The room fell silent. I looked from one worried face to the next.

'She won't. I'm sure of it. She is confused, child-like, forgetful, but not hostile. Either way, we have no choice. We have to land before repairs can be made to her. Meanwhile, the safest place in an emergency landing is a stasis pod. Statistics prove it overwhelmingly. So we will leave the rest of the crew where they are. Any more questions?' There were blank faces. Hollow, staring eyes. Shaking heads. 'Please continue eating. Relax while you can. There'll be precious little time for it in the foreseeable future.'

Out of silence, ripples of discontent quickly swelled and grew till the room was awash with anger. Its power overwhelmed me. Gazing around, I registered the scale of dissent, realised it would be magnified ten times when the rest of the crew were woken, and knew I had made a terrible error of judgment. Rightly or wrongly, I had to relent, ignore my head and follow my heart. 

'Listen, everyone! You are right. So right. I'm sorry. We will find the time to say goodbye to those we lost, to pay our respects. We can't wake the rest of the crew - such a delay would put us all at risk - but we can say goodbye on their behalf. We have to. Meet me on Shuttle Deck in... one hour precisely. There is much to do.'

I strode between the tables, left them to ponder. They needed more than an hour. Much more. But it was all I dared give them.

*

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

Nothing to do but write, eat chocolate, drink tea... Inversion 1, excerpt 11

As the heading suggests, I have nothing to do today, but eat chocolate, drink tea, and write. I'm attacking Inversion 1, turning 'telling' sections, where I sketched in what is happening at points in the story, to 'showing' sections, where the story is told by actual happenings, actual dialogue. A bit of telling is okay, apparently, helps the momentum at certain points, but too much is not engaging for the reader.

With that in mind, I'm going to read through the following with an editor's cruel eye, and consign that telling to the bin. I'd love it if you would join me.

Inversion 1
Beginnings
Excerpt # 11

On reaching Deck 17, I followed my nose. The catering team had evidently been working hard. Each Stasis Hold of two hundred souls was a self-contained community with all the skills necessary for the best chance of survival; the Wakers in Hold 1 - despite their specialist status - were no exception. From the corridor outside, Refectory 1 seemed reassuringly loud and lively, though on entering I noticed the only conversation was between cutlery and plates. Around a hundred Wakers sat at glass-topped tables that were drawn across the room like lines on a page. An aisle bisected the lines into columns and led to the long gleaming counter where trays of food sizzled and steamed. Heads turned, sombre faces lifted and red eyes stared as I walked down the aisle. Though some had changed into the orange overalls that served as uniforms, many still wore their grey stasis suits. They were grubby and sweat-stained and their weary occupants looked equally unkempt. I guessed few of them – if any - had slept at all. Around twenty men were spread evenly throughout the hall, though Keith and Michael sat at a table on their own in the corner. The aroma of succulent food overpowered me. A dozen mumbling women stumbled through the doors. I recognised them, knew they had just completed their stint of guard duty. They hushed when they saw me, silently joined the patient queue for welcome sustenance.

'Good morning!'

My words echoed around the bright white rectangular space. All turned their faces towards me. Their voices were as one.

'Good morning, Captain.'

Hunger nagged at me and my mouth watered till I could barely speak. I stole a scrap of bacon from an abandoned plate, closed my eyes and chewed slowly. Though cold, it was delicious.

'I can get you a plate of your own if you'd like, Captain.'

I smiled.

'Thank you, Carmel. I would like that very much.'

'Coffee?'

'Tea, please. No sugar.'

A few murmurs and chuckles seemed to ease the tension. The petite, orange-haired girl scraped back her chair and headed for self-service. I took the moment to say a few words.

'In the last hours we have all witnessed terrible things. Some of you have lost loved ones. Your pain is felt by all of us. The days and months ahead will be difficult, but together we will get through this. I want to thank you all for your professionalism and dedication to duty in the face of such terrible adversity. We all need time to reflect, to mourn, to take stock,' Some heads bowed, others nodded mutely, 'but unfortunately, we are not able to do so.'

Whispers of disbelief morphed through cries of discontent into bawls of outrage.

I shouted over the throng.

'Please, let me explain.'

Silence descended slowly. Carmel placed a piled-up plate in front of me. Her eyes were blue red-rimmed saucers.

'Sir, we need to say goodbye to those we have lost.'

'I know, Carmel, I know,' I rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder, 'but we don't have the time.'

Angela6, a tall black woman, stood, her voice bitter with grief.

'That's exactly what we do have! It's the ones who died who don't...'

She folded into her chair. Friends hugged her, consoled her, then belligerent eyes turned back to me. I decided to give them the bare and shocking truth.

More soon. Did I pass my self-imposed test? I'm not sure...

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

Do-it-yourself sexy sci-fi. Inversion 1, excerpt 10

Hi
I reckon that, if I post a thousand words of Inversion 1 every day whilst at the same time writing five hundred more, by early May 2019 - if I haven't died/run out of ideas/thought of an ending (ah! I actually have an ending: it's the bit before the end that bothers me) - you, good Blog Reader (if you exist at all, a sad possibility I am beginning to suspect), should have just about caught me up. Hopefully by then, you'll know enough about the characters to be able to finish it for me, while I take a well-earned rest. With that happy thought in mind, I offer you episode 10 from chapter 1 (Beginnings) and trust you will enjoy. You'd better - it could soon be your baby!

Inversion 1
Beginnings
Extract # 10

'Captain!'

Erica hailed me across Hold 2. Her face was ashen. I waited till I was beside her then spoke quietly.

'Is it as the computer predicted?'

An unreadable thought flickered across her taut lips.

'There are no female casualties...'

'None?' She nodded. 'Thank God! And the men?'

Her face darkened.

'Holds 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 have no survivors. They've all been dead for a long time.'

I shook my head in disbelief.

'How many? How many survived?'

'Including yourself, forty-two.'

It made me incredibly uncomfortable to do so, but I had to immediately reduce them to data.

'Is there a pattern?'

'None that I can see. Three from your hold. Two each from Holds 12, 14 and 16; thirty-three from Hold 20. Two in Hold 14 were very recent deaths. The rest...'

It was her turn to shake her head. We were silent for an age.

'You've done a good job, Erica. How is Carmel?'

'Not good. She and her brother were very close. I gave her time...'

'And the other Wakers? How have they coped?'

'Forty-seven had partners or male kin on board. None of their men have survived. A handful have insisted on working. The others are being looked after.'

There was another lengthy pause. We stood together, exchanging much but saying nothing. Around us, small groups of women - all clad in tight stasis greys - spoke urgently then split and strode purposefully between the rows. Erica gave instructions to a petite young woman with long red hair, who nodded and took off for another hold. I watched her trim figure turn the corner and vanish from view. 

'I know her. Who was that?'

Erica's frown was unreadable.

'Jane.'

'Jane?'

'No further nomenclature. There's only one Jane on board.'

'Ah, yes. Astrophysicist. I read her application. She's brilliant.'

'Most of the crew are experts in their fields.'

I recognised a hint of irritation in Erica's voice and decided against adding to it.

'Of course.'

'What now, Captain?'

'Autopsies. Choose two from each hold. It's less than regulations stipulate, but we have few medical staff and too little time. Suit up and apply the strictest quarantine conditions. Erica?'

Her eyes had glazed over and all colour had left her face. I placed my hand on her upper arm and she jumped as though I had woken her. It took a moment for my words to sink in.

'Sorry, Captain.' She smiled weakly. 'I'll see to it. Have you any thoughts on what killed them?'

'Yes. Asphyxiation.'

'You think they suffocated?' I nodded. She was incredulous. 'How do you know?'

'Because I almost succumbed myself. And I... I've had a chat with the computer.'

I raised an eyebrow, though the movement was lost on her.

'And the others? What shall we do with the others?'

'We won't even open their pods. Eject them intact. A lot of work, I know, but less than the cleaning and sterilising. And we won't be needing those pods now, will we?'

'No, Captain.'

'Clear Shuttle Deck and assemble the affected pods there, where they can be easily ejected. Transfer will take some time, but we have vehicles suited to the job. How long do you think it will take?'

Her response was almost immediate.

'At least thirty-six hours. We will have to work on a plan first - nothing on this scale was ever considered.'

'Have you enough bodies...' I instantly regretted my choice of words, 'er, enough manpower...' and those, 'without waking another hold?'

'We will cope. The fewer who have to witness this the better.'

'Agreed. You have worked brilliantly today, Erica. I won't forget it.'

She smiled a sad twisted smile.

'There will be a service for the dead?'

'Of course. After the autopsies and the clean up, and once all the crew have been woken we will be able to say our goodbyes.'

'Aye aye, Captain.'

There was much planning to do. I suddenly felt drained and needed time alone.

'If you need me, I'll be in my quarters.'

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

Shoots to the sun: moths to a flame

Hi

You're wondering how my lawn is doing, aren't you? That all-revealing patch of green that lies before my modest little house and shouts to the world about my lethargy, my procrastinacity, and all my ignorant pink fingers and uninitiated thumbs. Well, it's doing very well, thank you very much, with not a little help from the great English weather. Sun, rain, sun, rain, night. Sun, rain, sun, rain, night. I love it. Sun follows rain follows sun as surely as night follows day. And thus the shoots stretch skywards and photosynthesise, sucking up the chemical feed I assiduously spread for them. It's growing. And looking blooming lovely.

I'm including an entire short story today and, at 834 words, it is truly short. 'What is a short story?' I heard someone recently ask. After much thought, I think it is this. I think: a short story is a concise piece of writing involving one or more characters in which something happens that causes an intentional emotional response in the reader. With that in mind - for I always have something in mind - I scribbled down the following. It's now entombed in a very secret and obscure place - one of my books on Amazon: 'A lifetime in thirty minutes'. If you'd like to set it free, it is here:

Help me! Please set me free!

By all means let me know if, for you, this short story fits my criteria.

Moths to a flame

I flit from mate to mate, blindly seeking 

Pleasure in the darkness till the moon -

A bloodied golden shard - cuts through the

Curtain, orchestrates and takes us upward,

Beating time, she drives us onward, forward,

Till we join and die, join and die.

I bob to the surface of the wettest dream. The ephemera dissolve, peripherals sink into the dark depths, but the truth at the centre still floats before me. Rhythmic beats stir the air, wafting cool waves onto my shuttered eyes.

'What are you?'

I sense her there, know the impossible truth before I even dare to look. Warm breath, sweet as nectar, washes over me.

'I am... your mate. Your lover.'

She glows. I breathe in, in, in. Dizziness rocks me and I exhale noisily. Inconceivable naked beauty fills my vision.

'Are you an angel?'

With sensuous fingertips she explores her body as though for the first time. A glassy splinter of laughter bursts the bubble of wonder that floats between us. 

'Hah! Angels don't have these... or...' Her lovely face turns to the heavens as fingers probe a glistening cleft in her pristine skin. 'Angels are sexless. Pure.' Long, black nails comb through her short blonde hair as again her head falls back. A throaty sigh abrades the still night air. 'Do I look sexless? Do I look pure?'

Her pale blue eyes are full of mischief. And something darker. Much darker. Feathers rustle as wings gently flutter and then press together like hands in prayer. She is perfection. Despite her protestations, I know what she is.

A wet tongue flicks across her full expressive lips. Amusement flits across her pale seraphic features.

'Was I too early? Or too late?'

I am suddenly, uncomfortably aware of my clammy naked torso, a wet dream turned to cold liquid reality. 

'Oh, God, I'm so sorry...'

My shame boils the air, burns my cheeks, but she waves it away. Incredibly, she falls to her knees and licks the shame from me. I stroke her neck and shoulders, wide-eyed with dumbstruck wonder. Supernatural limbs emanate from her lithe back. I trace the transformation from flesh to feathers, from feathers to flesh, while luxuriating in the heavenly lips that cleanse me. She teases me, tickles me, till all memory of my climactic submersion is expunged from my body and mind. 

Finally, her mouth gathers up the shrunken fleshy coil and begins to suck. It quickly rises, engorges and swells to full length; aching, it momentarily falters then recovers and stands proud. She pulls away; smiles approvingly then her perfect face suddenly clouds and grows serious.

'This moment...' She pauses to gather her thoughts; lips quiver and eyes moisten. 'This moment is what we were created for. Our pasts, our futures, are nothing without this simple singular act. Do you understand?' I nod, though her words mean nothing. 'Good. Then fuck me.'

She lies down beside me. I mount her. There is no ceremony, no foreplay. She is ready, fully primed. Though she is tight, my hardness slips easily into her. I withdraw; her eyes are full of rapture as again I slide inside her. In and out. Over and over. She surrounds me; overwhelms me. I meet her gaze and she smiles while nodding reassuringly. We are mixing our blood, our flesh. We are Gods, creating in our own image. We come together and separate. She grabs my hair and assails my ears with unholy oaths. She is sweetness and purity, depravity and filth. All at the same time. All in the same place. 

I close my eyes and we are weightless. Falling. Tumbling. Floating. Flying. Air rushes by. Wings beat. I am lifted up and we climb together; loins lock together once more. I cling to her. Again we tumble then rise again. My shoulder blades ache and I wince with the pain. She cries above the throbbing whistling wind.

'You haven't used them before, my love. The pain will fade... fade.' Astonished, I look over my shoulder. I am like her. I am one with her. 'There... there. Climb with me. Cum with me.'

My wings beat. Grow stronger. We are angels. We are flying. We are fucking. I bellow over the swirling, roaring night sky.

'Do we live forever?'

Again the brittle laugh.

'Hah! If forever is a moment, yes. As long as there are angels, this moment will last forever.'

'I love you.'

'This isn't love. There isn't time for love. But how could you know? How could you?'

'It feels like love.'

A ghostly azure moon sails across the velvet blackness. As we soar towards it, she grabs my hair again, shakes me and laughs into my ear.

'Then it is love. Cum inside me. Love me!'

Two pairs of wings whirr and dance towards the blue electric glow. The creatures briefly come together again then separate; the smaller flits across a rising sliver of moon; the larger flies towards the blue light and, with a flash of acrid lightning, vapourises into a feather of smoke.

*****

A nifty nip of naughty poetry #spshow

Hi
I published a poetry collection a few months ago:

I illustrated each poem too, and would love to share a sample with you.

See the book on Amazon

The poem I've chosen is... ooh, let me think (many are too graphic to post here, though there are several of a less explicit nature), er... It's

Frankenstein's lover

Break the sod and shovel through the wormy loam
Crack the casket lid and take my lover home
Cut away the flesh and sinew, hack the bone
Slap the slab and pierce the jigsaw till it's sewn
*
Search the hallowed ground, a stone, a memory
Then dig for death, a corpse of one once dear to me
Fill the barrow, wheel away by raven night
Hobble down the cobbled road towards the light
*
Vaulted dank laboratory, black with bloody
Stains and pale remains of loved ones I shall study
Piece by bitter piece. Regret I hose away
Then labour long to resurrect a bygone day
*
Jane's green orbs once danced upon my firm young skin
Silvia's tongue and flashing teeth I stitch within
Amanda's sweet lips - fit to raise the dead; Anne's hair
Completes the pillowed head; I leave it sleeping there
*
Such alabaster breasts were May's; whose suckled teats
Were these? And here, so taut, the belly of my teacher
Reaching for me, Judith's skilful teasing hands
Dear Lorna's lissome legs await my harsh demands
*
Wait! This bungled bag of bones entails the beat
Of organs... Becky's brain and Martha's heart replete
With lights and larynx; Stella's stomach for affairs,
Eschewing spleen and brewing bile oft biding there
*
A spark! A flash! Beneath the sheet the monster wakes
'Alive! God, It's alive!' I cry. The body shakes
And rises, bares its perfect torso. Scars are healed!
In heaven's name! I made an angel, now revealed
*
In all her naked glory; now she bids me lie
And taste her perfect flesh. Such wonders I espy!
My loves, compounded into one immortal creature
Each donating but a single perfect feature
*
Break the silence, chase the shade across the wastes
Crack my eyes and see the icy truth and taste
Her lips squeezed dry by tired familiarity
Thank God, tonight my lovers lived inside of me.

*

Functional shifts, Shakespeare, and Inversion 1, excerpt 9

Hi
I just wrote a comment in response to a +cronin detzz  post regarding careful word choice when writing - in which she quoted Mark Twain's wonderful comparison of lightning to lightning bugs - and thought it might warrant a mention here too. According to recent research, the correct word choice can create 'lightning storms' in the brain. EEG brain scans show how 'functional shifts' - changing the grammatical class of a word - trigger greater activity in the brain areas normally associated with emotion and autobiographical memory. So says David Robson in an article in this week's New Scientist.

For an example, he looked to the Bard:

Shakespeare's "to lip a wanton in a secure couch" (from Othello), employs "lip", a noun, as a verb, and "wanton", an adjective, as a noun. It seems this use of language forces the brain to reason and function more and thus process the information at a deeper level. Shakespeare often uses this device at a scene's turning point, priming the reader for that 'wow' moment.

I'm now going to read through all my books, yes, all 400,000 words, and see if I do anything similar... and if I don't then get ready for some serious editing!

Phew, after extensive eye-balling of such intangibles, I'm all iPadded out.

As I recover, here's the next episode of 'Inversion 1', my soon-to-be sexy sci-fi classic, the book that finally put to rest the notion that girls can't write science fiction...

Inversion 1
Beginnings
Excerpt #9

As if that wasn't bad enough, a terrible thought struck me. A thought so bad, I had to voice it.

'You tried to wake me didn't you?'

'Wake you? I... I don't know what...'

Her tone gave her away. My anger overcame diplomacy.

'You tried to wake me and killed half the fucking crew. Didn't you?'

She was silent. Oh, fuck, I was right.

'Yes! No! I remember trying to wake you... But killed the crew? Me? Look, I don't remember that. I admit I looked for you. I had something to tell you. Something... Why would I kill them? How did I kill them?'

I spoke calmly, as though to a child, while all I wanted to do was to smash her to pieces.

'They suffocated. Stasis was switched off, pod by pod. Only you could do that. Time started, they breathed and ran out of air.'

'If you say so. But why didn't they wake up?'

'The crew was sedated. The pods were sealed. You know all this! How could you not know?'

She was petulant.

'But you woke up!'

I was shouting now.

'Yes, I did. But only just. I nearly fucking joined them. What were you thinking?'

There was a long silence. The images from Hold 18 flashed through my mind. She was suddenly contrite.

'I... I don't... I've lost some files. Crew profiles, stasis information, that sort of thing. And other stuff. I didn't know what was happening. I had to talk to you. It was important - I remember that much. But it's been such a long time.' In the ensuing silence, I stared out into space. 'Oh, my! What have I done?' Her obvious distress added to her sincerity. I almost believed her. Her next question wasn't rhetorical and took me by surprise. 'Why were they sedated?'

My response was immediate, came straight from the manual.

'Because it eases the transition in and out of stasis. Reduces psychological side-effects, nausea...'

'That's a bit dangerous though, isn't it?' Again, I simply stared into space. All the trials, all the data, supported sedated stasis. The risks had been deemed minimal. How could this have happened? The computer seemed to sneer. 'Whose dumb idea was that?'

There was the longest silence.

'Mine. It was my idea.'

'Oh.'

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

Feed me! And inversion 1, excerpt 8

Hi
Yesterday, I fed the lawn. Today it rained. Sometimes life can be so beautiful...

I'm enjoying this blogging, though it is a drain on resources. What I mean is, it eats into your time, the time you set aside for writing, for proof-reading, for editing, all of which alone are more demanding than a basketful of kittens.

For all those thousands of you clinging to my every word and wondering what happens after Alex5, captain of the ship carrying humanity's last remnants off to the stars, wakes to find half his crew dead, then I shall keep you hanging on no longer.

Inversion 1
Beginnings
Excerpt #8

It took me about ten minutes to reach the bridge on foot, a journey that should have taken mere seconds. But I got there alive, wasn't crushed or microwaved in the shuttlelift, or suffered whatever anomalous death the ship had possibly lined up for me. Though I prayed the computer's voice algorithms were her only problem, it seemed likely she was the key to our plight.

Lights faded up. Control panels came to life. Filling the whole of one curved wall, a giant monitor screen flickered then displayed multi-screen views of the biospheres. The images, captured the instant before the stasis field was activated, brought some relief. Bees and insects hovered, frozen in flight. Myriad motionless trees and countless paralysed plants waited for time to start rolling again. I saw grain, rice, soya and potatoes. Ripe fruit and green vegetables ready to be picked. We needed them to thrive if we were to survive.

'Let's see what's out there.'
The monitor turned black then glowed with starlight. I panned around, zoomed in on a plethora of celestial objects. Cartwheeling galaxies. Swirling clouds of cosmic debris. Giant planets with massive moons and majestic rings. Smaller pitted spheres with icecaps, bands of cloud and tiny moons. Belts of asteroids circled between the five gas giants. I checked the sensors and scrutinised the on-screen data.

At a range of some two hundred million miles, we were orbiting a star of similar magnitude and age to our old Sun. So far, so good.
'Erica? How are things progressing.'
There was no reply, not even static. Nothing.
'She won't answer. There is apparently an "unidentified error" with communications.'
'Computer?'
'Yes, Captain?'
She seemed even more excitable than before.
'Get to work on that, will you?'
'I'll have a look, but I'll make no promises.'
I ignored her remark, returned to my reason for being here.
'Where are we?'
'To be totally honest, I haven't the foggiest. I don't recognise anything out there.'
Her earlier responses had been eccentric, but this was bizarre. Machines weren't programmed to talk like that, and for good reason. She was chatty, had somehow lost her formal, official, tone. And she was vague, bordering on clueless. I'd faced more pressing matters earlier and had ignored her behaviour. Now all my focus was on her. I asked a question that addressed many questions.
'Are you... joking?'
She laughed.
'Dear me, no, you'll know when I'm joking! You'll laugh till you cry! I've had bloody ages to...'
She'd definitely not been programmed for humour.
'How long have you had?'
'Depends what you mean - time's relative, don't you know! How long for you, or how long for the people left on Earth?'
'For us, of course!'
'Of course? Why of course? You've been in stasis, came out of it not one second older than when you went in. What difference does it make to you? I, on the other hand...'
'Computer, it makes a difference. How long?'
'Seven thousand three hundred and twenty-five years and ninety...'
'For us! Not Earth! How long for us?'
'If you'd let me finish! Seven thousand three hundred...'
'Are you saying we have been travelling for seven thousand years?'
'Give or take a few hundred, yes.'
'Are you sure?'
'I'm certain.'
'And Earth?'
'As far as Earth is concerned - assuming it's still there - we left a little over six million years ago.'

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

'Of angels mice and men' excerpt 1

Hi

Sales for this book are at last taking off. I was beginning to think that an anthology of sci-fi and paranormal erotic stories was a bad idea...

This excerpt is from a story called, 'The equinox of Thirteen,' the Thirteen in question being a girl trapped on a rain-sodden island with the last few all-female survivors of her species. Her increasingly lucid dreams predict how, on the equinox, all the ancient mysteries will be revealed.

Book: Of angels, mice and men

Story: The equinox of Thirteen

Excerpt #1

The diary of Thyrza, once known as Thirteen.

The sycamore's severed hands clogged the gutters. I kicked them up, freed the water from the random dams, and watched it swirl then flow through the ancient drain's rusted iron bars to its inverted freedom. The rain was relentless, fell in leaden drops that quickly drenched then chilled the flesh. I gazed up into it; obese and lifeless clouds, blurred by their plummeting progeny, spanned the entire sky with an unbroken sheet of the dreariest grey. They buried the hilltops, smothered the daylight, and eroded my hope, yet I trudged ever onwards through the rolling heathered hills. 

A fluttering at my breast alerted me. I reached into my waxed woollen coat and produced the tiny glass phial. Inside it, perfectly synchronised to the eight stages of daylight, my time-beetle had reached its seventh metamorphosis. It flapped its newly formed wings violently against the glass and would soon, thus confined and unable to find a mate, revert back to a pupa to safely see out the approaching darkness. I reckoned I had another league to walk and barely enough time or strength to do it, but the dreams had grown so incredibly real, and I knew I had this one opportunity to test their veracity: the Equinox; a stranger; an end to suffering.

The rain eased from lead through bullets to shot; the change - though slight - was so welcome that I thanked its god out loud. We had many words for rain, some derived from weaponry, others from bodily functions. Bullets, shot, swords and daggers were enjoyed by no one, while surely everybody's favourite was spitting, with perhaps crying the next. Pissing was as bad as it ever got. Whatever words we used, it was always raining and it was said it hadn't stopped for a thousand years.

I stepped between the skeletons of the first line of trees, swished my feet through layers of their sodden bloody flesh and stared up through the spindly bones into the darkening sky. Night was almost upon me. I stopped and checked my beetle again. She was quietly spinning, covering herself in a silken sheath that would soon set as hard as stone. Within it, her body would liquefy, and remain fluid till some unknown mechanism alerted her to the rising sun. By a similarly unerring process, a product of some mysterious function that had not yet been determined, the bodies of these god-given di-chromatic creatures were a living calendar. At the summer's height, their exoskeletons were completely white; at the winter solstice, they were, as one, totally black. By the morrow, my beetle would be black and white in equal measure, the two symmetrical wing-cases in total contrast. By that fact alone, I could determine that day was in perfect balance with night, and that the Equinox - my moment of truth - was nigh. 

As predicted by my ancient map, I stumbled out of the forest and into the blackened ruins as the last drops of daylight pissed into night's stygian sewer. I gazed around at the ivy-clad monuments, wonder crying from my eyes. Our legends said these crumbling cathedrals were built by an extinct race who called themselves Mon; if that were true, I thought they must have been impossibly strong and relentlessly resourceful: the geometric shapes of the massive structures resembled nothing in nature, and were apparently constructed from substances found nowhere else on the island. On our last foolhardy foray here, some seventy winters ago, Fourteen had become Eleven: three of our sisters had sickened and ceased, much as creatures around us sicken and cease. It was unknown that we could be taken thus. Our god-like certitude was mortally wounded; our confidence forever cracked. Soon,
others were taken. Sisters Seven, Eleven and Twelve succumbed. Then we were Eight.

I was the first Wo to have ventured into Forbiddenland in an age. The air was said to be fetid, the earth poisonous, and I stepped fearfully through the unnaturally parallel avenues, my nose, eyes and ears primed, terrified of the sickening and cowed by the ceasing. At the intersection of two wide avenues, stood an impossible spire, ten times taller than the tallest tree; its surface perfectly smooth and rounded; its peak piercing the blackness above me. I opened my coat and took out my five-worm phial, shook it and waited till the tiny crawling creatures within woke and shared their glow. By the soft green light, I could discern symbols carved into the towering structure's cuboid base, mysterious intricate shapes, the meaning and purpose of which I could only wonder at. As my index finger traced the grooves, my eyes fell upon an impossible image, a picture plucked from real life. From my life. A floating sphere with a cube suspended below it by a web of ropes. And in the cube, next to a simple depiction of a licking flame, a single smiling waving figure.

Sister Ten, the one I lovingly called Tess, had built a similar fabulous craft - a basket slung beneath a massive silken bag of heated air - then floated slowly upwards and disappeared through the clouds as though swallowed. Weeks later, her ripped and shattered ship was found clinging to a craggy cliff, though no trace of Tess's beautiful body was ever recovered. Scattered nearby, protected from the elements by crevasses and rocky overhangs, we discovered several soggy paintings of a fiery yellow ball in a cloudless azure sky, and yet others of a glowing golden crescent suspended on a sheet of black and set amongst myriad pointed pinpricks of light. I took an example of each, dried and folded them carefully and determined to carry them with me everywhere. On occasion, I took them out, hugged them to my breast and sobbed, loss and longing tearing at me in equal measure. What sights Tess had seen and at what cost! But I would gladly have changed places with her, just to see for myself what she had seen. I imagined time-beetles flying beyond the clouds too; perhaps they mated there, imprinted the preordained schedule of day and night onto their future offspring before falling back to the dim, grey, watery Earth.

I shared Tess's dreams of flight, while harbouring dreams of my own. At night, when I closed my eyes, these hopes became a diaphanous reality. A lush, green land; a cloudless sky; days of blazing light; nights of golden crescents and silver sparks. I foresaw that, at the Autumnal Equinox, a mysterious Wo would appear from the same sombre sky that had taken Tess. She was stronger than us, different in many ways to us, and showed us incredible things. We Seven multiplied, produced offspring in our own image, just as beasts produce their own likenesses. We proliferated; filled the land; ploughed and tilled; laboured, laughed and loved. Then, fulfilled and replete, we said our goodbyes and ceased without sickening, closing our weary eyes for the final time. Throughout the incredibly lucid dream, the stranger chanted mysterious words that reverberated in my head and finally dragged me back to my dank reality.

'I am Monson. I am Mon. I am one.'

'Of angels, mice and men' on Amazon

Life without water and Inversion 1, excerpt 7

Hi
Scientists looking for the life-bearing Goldilocks planet - you know, the one that's not too hot, not too cold etc -  are beginning to realise that life probably started without water and so are including planets in their search where liquid water may not exist. It seems water actually hinders the production of the building-block molecules necessary for carbon-based life to develop; apparently, hydrocarbons would be more suitable solvents, something like liquid methane or ethane or similar. That's a turn-up, is it not?

Okay! Enough science already. Here's another excerpt from my sci-fi novel-in-the-making, Inversion 1. Hope you're keeping up!

Inversion 1
Beginnings
Excerpt #7

With a push of buttons, I revived the two highest ranked. I paced up and down, waited till they had fully recovered before explaining what had happened, reckoning they would need all their faculties to cope. I was right. As I spoke, their eyes widened with pained incredulity. Tears flowed. Carmel's pretty freckled face turned ugly with grief. Fingers tore through her short orange hair.

'Oh, God! It can't be true. It can't be! My little brother is in Hold 18.'

She broke down. Erica2 supported her. Trepidation etched the tall blonde's face. They both looked to me for answers. I had none. I was making it up as I went along.

'Carmel... I'm sorry. There's nothing to be done for him now. 

'If the computer is correct, we have around two thousand survivors. Almost all are female. All must be woken manually, individually - we can't trust the ship's systems. Besides, if everyone woke together, panic could ensue. This is where your training comes to the fore. Wake one each. Explain what has happened. Assess their reactions. If they seem capable, the four of you can wake four more. The eight will lead to sixteen and so on. It should take...'

Erica took over. Her voice was even; her cool blue eyes were fixed and determined.

'With respect, Captain, we have practised this many times. Are we to assume the female holds are safe for the moment?' I nodded. 'Then in around forty minutes, ten teams of two will have searched the men's holds for survivors. That will be our priority.'

'Keith and Michael need urgent attention in Hold 18.'

'They will be cared for in due course. Ten further teams of two will be dispatched to the men's holds once we have the numbers available. Meanwhile, with those who remain, we should have roused everyone in here in around… seventy minutes. I will then place teams in the women's holds and wait for your further instructions - it may be prudent to keep the women in stasis till we have fully assessed the situation. As you say, panic must be avoided.'

'My thoughts exactly. Thank you.'

In Erica, I had chosen well; however, Carmel was a different proposition. Events had made her vulnerable. Erica read my thoughts, had that covered too.

'Because of the predicted scale and nature of casualties, some among us may not be able to function effectively. If I factor in a twenty percent susceptibility rate, we should still be finished in here in around... eighty five minutes.'

She was good.

'Twenty percent? Is that...'

'Worst case, yes.'

Relief released a sigh.

'You know all these women well?' 

She looked around and nodded.

'I do, Captain. Very well. They were carefully chosen. I'll set up teams to deal with casualties of all types. I have people in mind. Leave it with us. Our training covered many... extreme scenarios.'

‘Thank you, Erica. I’m pretty sure it’s a software problem, but other possibilities must not be ignored. Leave the dead sealed. Infection protocols must…’

‘Captain, this is our field. You can trust us. We know what we are doing.’ 

She turned to Carmel and the younger woman nodded her agreement. 

Inversion 1, a sexy sci-fi novel, will be published soon.

Easter bunnies and Inversion 1, excerpt 6

#spshow #erotica

Hi
Another day and another brief extract of 'Inversion 1', my sexy sci-fi novel. There may or may not be sex in this bit; I'm not saying either way, because if I do, and the answer is negative, you won't read it, will you? Easter bloody Sunday bloody morning and all you can think about is porn... haven't you a church to go to, or something? Some bizarre service recounting the raising of the Easter Bunny to attend, featuring that famous Christian icon, risen from its grave so it can lay some more eggs and hide them in your bloody suburban garden? What utter rubbish we teach our children! How gullible they are, that they believe something so utterly bizarre and brazenly mercantile. Such decadence surely indicates the impending End of Days you so desperately crave so you can tell us all how right you were all along. 

If you think I'm grumpy now, wait till bloody Christmas. And pass me another Cadbury's Creme Egg.

Inversion 1
Beginnings
Excerpt #6

Lights activated automatically, filling the hard cold space with a brittle brightness. The alarm punched my head with its jagged broken blare. I cringed, clamped palms to my ears and prayed for it to stop while collecting and piecing together fragments of shattered thoughts. Hold 19 contained only females, as did all the odd-numbered holds - in stasis, the sexes are separated and maintained in slightly different conditions. The alarm stopped and died away. In the sudden silence, the central control panel winked regularly and reassuringly, though my recent experience told me it could not be trusted. Was Hold 18 a tragic anomaly? Dashing between the rows of upright chambers that hung like sleek blue seed pods from the hold's supporting girders, I clung to that thought. Incredible. Unbelievable. Hope burst from me. Two hundred serene, extant, beautiful faces and not a single casualty.

Keith was still in his pod when I got back, but the other pod was empty. Where was he? I couldn't believe he was gone. I had to find him and quickly; such a nightmare could scar a man for life. I heard whimpers, soft crying like a child. I followed my ears. There, curled in a corner, arms covering his head. He was shaking. I knelt next to him and placed my hand on his shoulder. He looked up, brown eyes staring manically. Though it was chilly in the hold, perspiration shone on his smooth black skin. With some effort, I recalled the red lettering I'd seen embroidered on his suit.

'Michael? You know who I am?' He nodded warily. I spoke even more softly. 'As you can see, something terrible has happened. I'm sure it's restricted to this hold. The women next door are all fine. Hear me? All fine. I want you to wait here with Keith.'

He shook his head and raised a crooked pointing finger. His eyes were wild and streamed with tears.

'Dead... all dead! Oh, my God!'

I shouted over my shoulder.

'Keith! Get over here. Look after him will you?'

Keith lurched towards us, his features twisted with fear and confusion.

'Sir, what the fuck's happened?'

'I don't know. I'm going to wake the Wakers. Stay here! Do nothing. Remember: none of the ship's systems can be trusted. I'm going on foot, so I may be a while.'

I left them huddled together. There was so much to do my head spun. Michael and Keith were the least of my problems.

The Wakers were in Holds 1 and 2. Two hundred men and two hundred women specially trained in stasis revival and its associated mental and physical side-effects. 

I burst into the deck's long central corridor. Lights flared into life ahead of me as I started running. I questioned the computer as I ran. Whether I could trust her or not, I was going to need her.

'Computer. What is the status of Stasis Deck?'

Her voice was unrecognisably high-pitched and excited.

'Captain? Is that really you? Oh, wow!'

'Computer?'

'Oh, sorry. But it's so good to hear your voice! It's been...'

'Report, please!'

She checked her childlike enthusiasm, but could still barely contain herself.

'Three pods open in Hold 18, otherwise all are sealed and functioning correctly.'

'Computer, check that data. It cannot be valid. I have seen...'

'Check completed. Three pods open in Hold 18, otherwise all, as I said, are sealed and functioning correctly... Oh, but yes, I see what you mean - visual data is at odds with that conclusion. How strange!'

'Holds 1 and 2. Report on Holds 1 and 2!' Plimsolls slapped against the metallic floor as I ran. The echoes rang like gunshots. My breath was rasping and ragged. 'Report!'

Again her voice rose in pitch as incredulity algorithms engaged.

'Dear me! How could I have been so wrong? So incredibly wrong...'

'Computer!'

'Sorry, Captain. Hold 1 appears normal. I say "appears" - not a word I would normally use, of course - simply because of my recent errors of judgment. Statistically speaking, I would expect ninety-nine point seven-seven-four percent of the occupants to be alive.'

'Hold 2?'

'One hundred percent fatalities.' She mistook my silence for misunderstanding and rephrased her report. 'Captain, Hold 2 has no survivors.'

I reached the massive white sliding doors to Hold 1. After my mad rush to get here, I paused. Several deep breaths helped me regain some composure. I spoke quietly and calmly.

'Computer?'

'Yes, Captain?'

'Statistically, how many of the whole crew would you expect to be still alive?'

'That's a hard one. I really wouldn't want to commit...'

'Computer!'

Her response was immediate.

'Fifty-one point zero five percent.'

My heart stopped. The enormity of my task overwhelmed me. I spoke as calmly as I could.

'Which holds are worst affected?'

'The even numbers.' Shock stole my tongue and again she began to explain. 'You know? Two, four, six...'

'All the male holds?'

'Yes. Female casualties, zero. Male casualties, one thousand, nine hundred and fifty-six. No, wait. Pod one-two-seven in Hold 14 appears to...'

My hands clasped to my ears. I couldn't bear to listen. A stasis pod of grief surrounded me; time stood still. The casualties were too great to imagine. The computer's insistent, almost jolly voice cut through.

'Casualties are now one thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven.'

The doors to Hold 1 fizzed open. I dashed inside and began to rouse the Wakers.

More soon...

Inversion 1 new chapter. Beater-readers needed (sic). #erotica #spshow

Good morning, suburbia.

The lawn is behind me now and I have a new problem: how to get the iron sulphate stains out of the block paving. Who'd have known that Weed And Feed contains such horrors? Yes, it says so on the bag, but who reads that stuff. Well, me, obviously. But who reads it first?

I've just written a new section of my sexy sci-fi novel in which two of the major characters have sex in space, where there's no gravity, only levity... I should use that. While writing it, I wondered, obviously, if anyone has ever done it; you know, cum in a capsule, got randy in a rocket, bonked in a tin can (to use Bowie's Major Tom metaphor). Hang on, I'm going to Google it. Just a mo...

No. Apparently not. And if so, they are not talking about it. Not even those camp-looking Russians on Soyuz 13. And what would they say afterwards? Did the Earth move? That's one small cock for a man? Cummin', Houston? So I couldn't have researched it, even if I could have been arsed. Now take off your science officer's hat, screw on your wanking hat and virtually conjoin with me up there, way beyond the blue...

Inversion 1

Chapter God Knows

The planet turned beneath us, or rather we sped around it, though I knew, in the greater scheme of things, it all made very little difference; it was the same whichever way you looked at it. The thing was, we could look at it, could see Inversion 1 for what it was: a tiny speck of rock hurtling through an endless void. 

'Fuck, it's beautiful.'

He slid out and in, deliciously slowly, bludgeoning my bowels with his rigid meat. My cheek and lips pressed against the porthole, smearing it with my sweat and fogging it with my moist panting breath. I grunted between his thrusts.

'See. I told you. Travel changes your perspective.'

'Yeah.'

To be fucked by Ben while beholding such stunning scenery was a dream come true. I grasped tightly to the handles I'd had specifically situated for the purpose, while Ben simply held onto me, filled his hands with my tits, with my hair, and with my skinny waist. Again he entered me, then clung closely to my naked body. We gazed out through the glass, gods surveying all we ruled. I could tell he was close to tears. I whispered.

'Was the journey worth it? Do you see now?'

'Yes... I see.'

Insignificance manifested in his hesitant voice and slowly-softening flesh. This was neither the reaction I intended nor expected. As he became barely able to stoke my arse, I fired him up, placed him once again at the burning, beaming centre of my universe.

'Hey! Let's do it, do what I said we'd do! Quick, before you shoot it up there.'

He nodded, smiled and shook his head in mock disbelief.

'Is sex all you think about?' I nodded and smiled back, though eschewed the shaking head. He swept away a tear and smiled again. 'You're a dirty fucker.'

'So are you.'

He eased out of me, let go of me, and floated away. I stretched out my hand, but he was quickly beyond my reach. Without his touch, and even within such close proximity, encapsulated from the universe by our tiny personal ark, I felt lost. With one hand, he held onto the rungs above his head, while grasping his hardening cock with the other. It glistened, stared, demanded I taste it. A gentle push off the window glass sent me drifting towards him. As in a slow-motion dream, we docked, his member sliding between my tightly pursed lips and engaging with my tongue and tonsils. My face bumped against his taut belly; my hair flayed his chest and thighs. Locking onto his tool by suction alone, I swam in the air, slowly spinning myself around, stimulating him through 360 degrees and then beyond. When friction slowed me down, he gave me a helping hand, momentarily releasing his grip on the ladder to gently add to my rotational momentum. Each full turn afforded me a glimpse of his incredulous face through my whirling curls. Suction remained the sole force holding us together, and even though my neck and jaw ached and my lungs burned, I clung on. At last, his loins tightened in readiness; an urgent word confirmed his impending climax.

'Now!'

I breathed out, expunged him from my maw and wafted free. After steadying himself, he let go of the rungs and hung in the space between the capsule's winking walls. Our eyes met and lingered. Silence occluded us, but love quickly breached it, overflowing and filling the cabin, drowning us in its all-encompassing certainty. His eyes rolled and his pink pulsing thruster fired, emitting a long creamy string aimed unerringly at my open mouth. The recoil turned him slightly about his centre of gravity and our eyes met again; wide, laughing, incredulous eyes. Amusement again flickered through his ecstatic features as I sucked the silky string into my hungry mouth and swallowed, the peristaltic waves sending shudders through my weightless tits. I reached out, nudged the wall and aligned my position with his predicted new firing line. A second burst of equal and opposite was manifested in wobbling globules that drifted across the cabin towards me. I counted them, consumed them, one by delicious one. At that moment, he reached down, pulled back on his cock and discharged a third burst, the energy of which again shifted us out of conjunction. A fulsome fourth and bountiful fifth were more problematic and caused me real consternation: quickly and gymnastically, I bounced from wall to wall, gobbling up the milky liquid before it inseminated the ship's sensitive electronics. Then I reached for him, grabbed him, and clung to him, and we floated in featherlike ecstasy.

I'd appreciate any suggestions, biology-wise or physics-wise, as I'm a lover and a writer, and neither a doctor nor a scientist :)

Literal Fantasies, #erotic #novella free on Amazon this Easter Saturday and Sunday only! #spshow

Hi
This Easter weekend, Saturday and Sunday only, I'm giving away my eggcellent naughty novella, 'Literal Fantasies', a story of five extraordinarily everyday people and one remarkable day. You can own it by following the link below:

Download Literal Fantasies here

Have a lovely weekend!
Xxx

Bladerunner and my #erotic #sci-fi #novel, Inversion 1

It's like I'm not meant to be here. I try every day to be better, but there's always something holding me back, hemming me in, choking me, sucking the living life from me. Colour drains, flesh is bleached by the staring sun... burning, constantly burning, sticking out its big yellow tongue and shouting, silently shouting to the starless, cloudless nothing of the big blue sheet of solid sky that's propped up by the solid, still and stultifying air. I could take the pain, take it all, if only there were hope, a drop of glistening sparkling molten hope among the dazzling blue, but there is none. Goodbye. It's for the best. It really is.

That's how my lawn must feel right now. This bloody hot weather, when all you need is rain. What is wrong with the bloody weather, when April is like July and December is like May? The plants are confused; the birds are confused; the bloody bees are throwing in their stripy towel and leaving the flowers unserviced and soon there'll be fuck all left to eat, except for meat and when that's gone, nothing; there'll be nothing... and it's like I'm not meant to be here. I try every day to write this bloody blog, to make it interesting, but there's always something holding me back, hemming me in, choking me, sucking the fucking living life...

Oops. Leapt off that downward spiral just in time. And all for the love of my lawn. I mean, if I'm not here, who's going to water it? No one. That's who. It's not going to rain. Never going to rain. April showers? April fucking showers? No chance. Not a cloud. Ne'er a cloud, just the staring sun, burning, constantly burning, sticking out its big yellow tongue and shouting, silently shouting to the starless, cloudless nothing of the big blue sheet of solid sky that's held up by the solid, still and stultifying air. I could take the pain, take it all, if only there were hope, a drop of glistening sparkling molten hope among the dazzling blue, but there is none. Goodbye. It's for the best. It really is.

See. I'm turning into a blade of grass. I need to stop gardening and do something useful. Something productive. Writing! I'll have a go at that. And while I'm away, slaving over chapter two hundred and bloody thirty-seven, here's some more of chapter 1 from my long-awaited (well, it's long) erotic sci-fi debut novel.

Inversion 1

Beginnings

Excerpt 5

Oxygen flooded the pod. Drugs poured into my system. I sucked in huge lungfuls of sweet life, yet was still unable to move. My memory told me it would take a minimum of seven minutes for the revival sequence to complete. It seemed like an age. I waited. And waited. All the while staring death in the face. There was nothing else for me to do.

My pod opened with a beautiful hiss and the movement activated the hold's sensors. Floodlights blazed. An alarm sounded, its insistent beep-beep rattling my thumping head. Still unable to move my limbs, I blinked and again focussed on the horrific faces opposite. Unlike my dream, we had entered this hold together. It seemed like only moments ago. I could still hear the noisy nervous chattering, the laughter and the backslapping. Jokes were still cracking and banter still flowed. I prayed they had all passed peacefully in their sleep.

The alarm stopped abruptly. Echoes died. The ensuing silence was deathly and eerie. I tested my legs. Okay. I'll be okay. My voice croaked. I bit my tongue and swallowed. At my spoken bidding, the clamps released. I tried to step forward, but fell to the floor with a painless clatter. I lay still for long minutes till dull aches permeated my consciousness. Moments later, pain pierced the anaesthesia and the cold hard floor pressed into my face. 

I breathed deeply and tested my muscles again. Drew up my knees. Hugged my chest. A herculean effort pulled me onto my feet. I was suddenly aware of a cold sticky wetness that shrivelled my balls. An embarrassing stain darkened the groin of my snug grey stasis suit and a desperate thought took root and thrived: across space and time, Emma had stirred me with the wettest of dreams then shocked me into consciousness with the ultimate sacrifice. Steadying myself against a pod, I shed more tears, both for her and for the poor souls who surrounded me. I steeled myself, wiped the blur of grief from my eyes. My First Officer's decomposing face gazed grotesquely through me. 

Steven13. We had studied together, worked and fought together. Drunk and laughed together. The name on his stained and rotting stasis suit was barely legible. He was hermetically sealed, like Snow White inside her glass-fronted casket, but, unlike the mythological girl, there was nothing pure, pale and virginal here. Death had fucked him then liquefied him into Snow Black. 

I retched, turned and staggered along the line. Dead. All dead. Some were recent. Others - bare bones sloshing up to their pelvises in black viscous goo - might have been dead for years. Many would have struggled just as I struggled. It seemed none of them had made it, yet the hold's central control panel showed nothing but green lights. 

This was Stasis Deck. Four thousand souls at the mercy of machinery. How many had survived? I ran between the rows, shouting out, panic pumping through my veins. 

'Anybody here? Anyone?'

There! Thank God! One still alive. I kissed the glass then ran between the perfect putrid ranks. Another one here! No. Gone. So many dead. The hold overflowed with death. It submerged me; the shock and the effort drained me. Once more I slumped to the floor, dizzy and fighting for breath. Once again training overrode the panic.

'Get up! No fucking time for that.'

Pulling myself to my feet, I stumbled back between the rows and deactivated the sole survivor's pod. I waited then watched with relief as Michael3's facial muscles twitched. The pod hissed open. His chest rose and fell. Eyelids peeled apart. I spoke as calmly as I could.

'Michael, there has been a fault. I'm waking you. No panic. Wait here till I return.'

His brown eyes signalled his understanding. I checked the rows again and found one I had inexplicably missed. He was tall, bearded and gaunt. Punching buttons on his pod, I entered the revival sequence. He didn't respond. I made adjustments to the controls and tried again. His whole body twitched and his eyes snapped open. He stared straight through me. I swung open his pod.

'Hey, relax, buddy!' I read the name on his breast. 'Keith, I'm your captain. There has been a problem. I'm reviving a small party to carry out repairs. Take your time. I'll be back shortly.'

Just three survivors from the two hundred in this hold. Nineteen more holds to go. If the losses were the same throughout the crew, we were finished. We had anticipated some casualties, but a disaster of these proportions had been unforeseen. I said a silent prayer as I opened the airlock that led directly into the next hold. Hold 19.

More soon...

Lawn care and Inversion 1 excerpt 4

#erotica #sci-fi #SPShow

Hi
Do I weed and feed the lawn now? Will it burn it? Is it going to rain? Gardeners are a wonderful, hardy and knowledgable breed; by comparison, writing is a piece of cake.

Anyway. Here's excerpt #4 from my forthcoming sexy sci-fi blockbuster, 'Inversion 1'. Alex5, captain of the last ship to leave Earth before it's impending war-ravaged demise, is woken from stasis by the strangest of dreams and knows his faulty pod offers him little time before he suffocates.

Inversion 1
Beginnings
Excerpt #4

The stasis pods across from me glowed in the sickly light. Green LED's blinked, at least suggesting the pods were operational. My brain was still numb. Who were those people? Memories began to whirr. Now I remembered. Steven13, Greg... Mark21. Fine officers. I strained my eyes. Vision suddenly cleared as though a shroud had been removed. Horror injected adrenaline into my heart and a hoarse gasp consumed precious litres of air.

Bloated heads. Contorted features. Blue, swollen lips. Bulging, bursting eyeballs. Fuck. Fault was an understatement. This was a disaster. Death surrounded me. And soon I would join them. I struggled. A mad internal struggle that had no outward manifestation. I tried again, strained every sinew. My cheek twitched. My lips moved. Again I tried and failed. Breathing was becoming laboured and increasingly fruitless. Lungs burned. Stars burst inside my spinning head and faded into blackness. I was drowning in lifeless air, had but seconds to act. The training kicked in.

Don't panic. Panicking wastes resources.

Toes flexed. Fingers juddered. Stretched. Reached.

Fuck, where is it? Calm down! Remember the training. Where? There! Reach! Almost...

I split into two. Half of me accepting: half fighting.

I didn't think it would end like this...
Emergency override!
Alex5: survived the war; the chaos, fear and hatred... and died in quiet solitude.
Find the damned button.
It is time. All that work, all those plans, to die like this.
I won't die like this!
This is it. Don't struggle. Relax.
The sequence!
So peaceful.
Press the sequence. What is it?
Forget it! It's too late. Sleep.
What is the fucking sequence?
Sleep... So, so nice...
Fuck off! Think. Think! Yes!

. -- -- .-
Emma.

More soon!

Self-publisher's showcase #SPShow

Hi
Paul over at Self-Publisher's Showcase - a wonderful online place where authors (self-publishing ones, at least) can receive publicity by way of a custom-made page - has invited me to take part in an interview for a forthcoming feature. His questions are very in-depth, very apposite and knowledgeable, and it will take me a few days to add my responses. I'm looking forward to seeing the results on their very professional and rather beautifully presented website:

Alexandra Amalova's Self-Publisher's Showcase page

Besides all the writing, editing, checking sales progress, publicising, tweeting, and general online 'house-keeping', I also have a winter's-worth of  moss to remove from my rather expansive lawn (and that's no metaphor - the winter has been very wet and mild and my poor grass is completely choked). It's good to get your hands dirty in the real world, very grounding, and helps clear my head. The garden is fertile ground in a variety of ways: many a good storyline has sprouted from mind-numbing manual labour. Which just goes to show.

Right. Back to those questions. How did I first start writing? Now that's a story in its own right. It all began one stormy, rain-soaked night in November 2006 when I found out my...

#erotica short story compilation

Hi

Another day, another book. In between writing chapters to my 'Inversion 1' novel, I write and self-publish erotic short stories. This compilation contains, in around 40,000 words, 9 sci-fi and paranormal tales. You simply have to own it, don't you? I do, and read it every night before bed...

Of angels, mice and men

My #SPShow interview posted today!

Hi
My interview with Self-Publisher's Showcase is up on their site as from... now!

I said more than I meant to, divulged some well-kept secrets... but hey: when did the truth ever hurt?

Self-Publisher's Showcase Interview

Hope you can find the time to take a look :)

#Google #logo for Universal #Self-Abuse Day

Hi

This is an illustration from my recently-published poetry book, 'Once concealed: now revealed'. The beautifully presented work can be perused on Amazon by clicking here:

Once concealed: now revealed

It accompanies the poem, 'Bigger than Google'. I wish they would use it. Go on, guys! It's free! No charge at all!

What a gorgeous day! Time for a coffee and Inversion 1 excerpt 3

Hi

It's April and yet it's summer. Global warming? I love it. Might have a barbie later to help it on its way. For all the Greens out there, no, of course I don't really mean that, but it does have momentary benefits even if our collective future is somewhat irrevocably fucked up.

I keep reading over everything I've written, simply can't leave it alone and wonder if it's healthy. It's certainly time-consuming and prevents me moving forwards, but it is necessary too. Don't settle for the mundane when the extraordinary beckons. There's always a better way to say something. Even the sharpest words can be honed. There I go again. I spent five minutes wrestling with the first Hi. 

In ten minutes I'll be sitting under my pergola with a milky coffee (caffè latte is not a phrase I particularly enjoy; why speak Italiano when there's a perfectly good English alternative?) (yes, you're thinking maybe pergola has an English alternative too, aren't you? However, I'm not that pedantic) (And yes, latte is espresso and steamed milk, whereas... let it lie, will you?) editing and honing some more. Then, hopefully, I'll write the next bit, you know, the bit where Alex (don't ask me which one, I've lost track) gets laid by that Changer assassin on Inversion 4, before... Well, that would spoil it, wouldn't it? Instead, let me give you excerpt 3 from chapter 1, Beginnings.

Inversion 1

Beginnings

Excerpt #3

In the background, the ship hummed her monotone approval. Where would she take us? What wonders would we see? And how many years away was morning? I swallowed the sedative. 

'Close clamps.' My arms, legs, head and torso were held in place. 'Close pod. Computer?'

'Yes, Captain?'

'Begin stasis checks and engage when ready.'

'Yes, Captain.'

The drugs began to take effect.

'Computer?'

'Yes, Captain.'

'Don't forget to... wake... me...'

'Captain?'

'What is it now?'

'You have a visitor.'

'A visitor?'

My pod hissed open. Clamps released. Gentle footfalls approached from my left. Emma stood before me, grinning widely. She was beautifully, breathtakingly naked. Slowly sinking to her knees, she freed my tool and took its soft coil onto her pink tongue. My heart pumped and filled her with my love.

A can of spray foam filled her right hand; a cut-throat razor glinted in her left. The cold cream took my breath as she smeared it around my genitals. After licking my hard tip once more she raised my shaft to vertical and began to scrape the shining steel across my dangling scrotum. Each pass was blissful. The deadly blade, performing such a loving, intimate act, aroused me intensely. I thought back to the first time she'd done it, when I'd ejaculated - without warning - into her face. Her right eye had still been red the next day. We often laughed about it. 

A white towel cleaned the blade. The same soft towel wiped me clean. Her tongue and lips titillated the smooth skin, while her foamy finger slid into my arse. Eyes scanned my face for guidance, though she didn't need any - she always knew what I wanted long before I did. God, I loved her.

Blonde hair spilled through my fingers as I fucked her lovely mouth. Though rapt with ecstasy, tears streamed from my eyes. I climaxed while gazing into her beatific face. Cum overflowed. It oozed through her red lips, dribbled down her chin, and dripped onto her tits. Emma massaged the milky goo into her stiff nipples then leaned back onto her heels. Cool air washed over me as I left the slippery heat of her mouth. She swallowed then lapped again at the rod of hard flesh. A last spurt spattered her lips and she captured it with a sweep of her tongue. She kissed my belly till I shrank into flaccidity then eased my cock back into my pants and zipped me up. 

I picked up my bags and left her, gently closing the door behind me. The corridor's thick carpeting muffled my footsteps; the hard white walls reflected my heavy breaths. A sudden shout halted me. I waited. Listened. Tiptoed back. Strained my ears. Silence.

'Alex!'

A gunshot hammered my eardrums. I snatched open the door. Emma was still on her knees, her chin and hard brown nipples still glistening with my cum. A gun smoked at her temple. Scarlet blood spattered the white wall. More trickled down her cheek and mingled with the liquid life I had just wasted on her. Tears glinted in her wide green eyes. Her smile was twisted, demonic.

'Alex, please don't go!'

Blackness. Silence. Confusion. Realisation: shuffled memories had melded into an imperfect stream of unconsciousness. A dream. But if I was dreaming, I was sleeping. And if I was sleeping then time was moving...

There was a fault. Something was terribly wrong. There had been no wake-up call, no alarm, so my pod was still sealed; yet I was semi-conscious. Stasis had failed; time was definitely moving. I tried to open my eyes. Nothing. I tried again. The sedative was still in my system, preventing movement. Dim light permeated my eyelids. The same light had probably triggered the dream of Emma’s bed, our last goodbye, and the jumbled day that followed. A droplet of sweat trickled from my forehead and tickled my cheek. That was a good sign: my senses were waking. I checked my breathing; it was shallow and almost silent, barely noticeable. How long had time been running? I couldn't tell, but I knew I had very little time to free myself before the air in the pod ran out and I suffocated. Eyelids fluttered and parted. I struggled to focus. 

More soon...