When Jamie becomes Becki

When Jamie becomes Becki, he feels lighter

Dancing becomes a joy not a chore

Outfits chosen, unchosen, finally discarded in the tiny back bedroom where nobody goes except him, and of course her.

When Jamie becomes Becki, he still likes to drink pints

Likes how the amber light reflects onto her sharp red nails,

Sometimes wishes that drinks are served in two pint mugs,

Wishes that her hands could be dwarfed as they wrap around the glass,

But shrugs, makes the best of things

Her Pandora bracelet tapping against the rim

Chink, chink chink.

When Jamie becomes Becki, it is enough in itself, enough for him, enough for her

No endgame except the possibility of near seduction in forgiving light,

The possibility of almost passing.

Hunger 9- the fat woman’s lament

She is hungry, constantly hungry, engulfed with appetite.
Nothing satisfies her, even as she fills her mouth, she is searching out the next spoonful, the next plate full, the next meal.
Even when she sleeps, she dreams of food, a line of plates stretching as far as the eye can see on snowy white sheets.
The plates are heaped with food, fruits and breads and cakes tumbling to the floor.
In her dreams, she sees herself fall upon freshly baked bread, can taste it’s warm doughy mass against her teeth and lips, her fingers pull at grilled meat, become greasy, shiny with warm fat, pale cooked blood.
She licks them, sighs in pleasure and wakes herself up, pillow damp with licking or chewing or salivating, she cannot tell which.
In supermarkets she peers into other people’s baskets, other people’s lives, remains unconvinced that they are satisfied with their low fat yogurts, their pitta breads,their one lonely chocolate flapjack, half hidden under a bag of salad leaves.

Her hunger rules her, in quiet meetings she cannot believe that the others cannot hear her stomach growl and complain, she makes excuses, flees to the nearest bathroom, storeroom, quiet corner and placates it with bags of smarties, packets of wine gums, loose biscuits crumbling to dust at the bottom of her handbag.

When she eats with others, colleagues, friends, family, she is forced to sit, actually sit on her hands to stop herself reaching out, reaching over and across people to grab at left over food, barely touched plates, ignored side dishes.
Friends who know her well simply pass over their plates when they have finished.
Then watch as she eats one, two, three meals, but it’s never enough, never, ever enough.

Sometimes at night, when she lies, warm, drowsy, body scented from the expensive oils she drops into her bath, hands resting on her rounded, almost full tummy, she wishes she could hold onto this feeling, this peace forever, but she knows, knows full well, that in three, four hours, she will wake, ravenous and will pad on soft night time feet into the kitchen and stand at the open fridge door, hands squishing cheese, soft, cheap bread into an approximation of a sandwich.

The cat will wind around her legs, eyes on the look out for dropped crumbs of cheese, bread, a litany of miaows to tell her that he too is starving and she will reach down and share the final bite of her late night snack with him.

She is big, of course she is big, but with a joyous glamour that means that men stare at her, at her breasts, her full behind, when she walks down the street and other women suddenly feel all angles, too small for their place in the world when they stand next to her.

No-body knows about the hunger that drives her on, the emptiness, the longing for enough.

The hunger has its compensations, she is a baker of cakes, a sharer of sweets, the go to girl when pre-menstural pangs strike her lean, controlled friends.

The many men in her life find that she is the source of un-acknowledged, never aired fantasies in which they imagine themselves buried, enveloped in soft giving flesh, feeding their own hungers, their own needs, mouths full, busy, stuffed.

Her world is full of people who want to feed her,who unknowingly worship at the alter of her hunger, market traders who throw extra aubergines, their shiny flesh almost as seductive as her own, waiters who bring her extra portions, sly slices of pudding, tiny coloured glasses of sweet liqueurs, other people’s parents, who despairing of their own daughters’ bird like appetites, turn cheerfully to her, heap her plate, fathers’ using the excuse of serving another dish of trifle to pat her arm, the curve of her shoulder.

Sometimes, she wonders what it would take to fill her, wonders if her body would actually explode before she reached that moment of satedness, wonders if she would, could actually die of happiness at that moment.

And then one day, quite out of the blue, something magical, something wonderful happens.

It is Thursday, grocery shopping day and she is standing, overwhelmed by the beauty of the piled, pyramided perfection of the soft fruit display in Waitrose.
She stretches out a finger, the nail currently painted a deep purple, perfect counter point to the orange of the tiny clementines, strokes their rough skin and sighs with pleasure.

She hasn’t really noticed the man, standing quietly, perhaps deep in thought as he stares at the wine purple grapes.

And suddenly,he leans towards her and with no warning, pops a grape into her mouth, she is so surprised that she bites down, feels the grape explode with juice and skin and sweetness in her mouth and then she has swallowed it and the pleasure is such that her eyes close, just for a second, but when she re-opens them, he is gone, a bunch of tissue wrapped grapes placed carefully in her basket.

She stands for a moment, the after taste of sweetness in her mouth,her throat and then she understands, that for the first time in memory, that she is not hungry, not hungry at all.

Slowly, thoughtfully, she heads towards the checkouts, but stops to leave her basket, abandoned in the ready meals isle.

She heads out, into the darkness, suddenly knowing exactly what she has been hungering for.

The Landscape of the Body – John Siddique workshop

So, on a suitably sultry Thursday evening, rubiesandduels headed off to a workshop on erotic writing hosted by the poet John Siddique.

He is irreverent, generous and writes beautifully about intimacy, erotica and yes, sex itself.

We worked through a number of writing tasks;

The landscape of erotica

Taboos

Intimacy and the placing of the reader in a privileged position in good erotic writing.

These are my 2 attempts at 2 of the tasks, they are very much workshop pieces, very rough, written quickly and in company, an odd place to write erotic fiction.

First,

A piece to explore personal taboos, to move the writer outside of their comfort zone.

CROSSING THE LINE

Straddled
face squashed into a pillow
focusing on his breathing
in and out and in and out
don’t show the fear.
Tonight, he knows that a line will be crossed
that after tonight, there will be no going back.
She has said as much
prepared him carefully
Ice
and fire
and chains
and now this line to cross.
He feels her weight shift against his shoulder blades
one hand presses against the top of his spine
fingers pressing on individual vertebrae
pressure just the other side of pleasure
her breath on the nape of his neck as she leans her head towards him
her hands swooping down towards the small of his back.
He stiffens
bites back a sound, almost a moan
stays still
stays silent.
And then there is a pause
a waiting.
His skin electric with anticipation
twitches.
The first cut comes so fast that he has no time to process what has happened
is only aware of sound
not pain
just the click of the unsheathed blade
the sush of skin scored like silk
And then, two more
zip
zip.
And afterwards
she takes him to a mirror
gently
tenderly
her fingers on his neck
tilting his head so that he can see
3 neat lines
Line one
Line two
Spine
Line 3
He knows that he crossed another line.

Ant then, we worked on intimacy and writing which allows the reader to be there, to see/hear secrets.
Again, this is a workshopped piece, very rough, very rushed.

IT HAPPENS A LOT

“Honest”
but his face is turned away, he mumbles into the sheets
“No, really, it’s common, almost everyday
Most men…….
Sometime……”

Her voice trails off, gentle, non-accusing, making light
But, hand’s a fist, a punch, held and caught, just brushing the pillow, while inside, everything is raging
“I don’t mind, truly….cuddling is lovely too”
Don’t smile she thinks, don’t smile
“Let me see what I can do to help”
A movement towards him, but,
he is still turned away, whole body stiff with shame and the irony is not lost on either of them and her fingers creeping forward
retreat
and pleat the corners of the sheet instead.

If you would like to know more about John Siddique
look here
http://www.johnsiddique.co.uk/

Everyone I have ever slept with – nos 1 to 27 – Version 2

I’m planning to perform this as part of a collection on remembering & forgetting.

This is a re-write of an earlier piece, feedback would be much appreciated.

1.I remember everyone I have ever slept with, even though I may have forgotten many if their names

2. I remember the first time and afterwards, a shame faced entry into a sitting room where everyone knew our business.

3. I remember the last time with R, with nothing left to say, we took refuge under the duvet on a wet September day.

4.I remember sharing a bed with B, she carefully placed pillows down the centre line, a demarcation of distance, of decency & decorum.

5.I remember the man who would knock on my door at midnight and fool that i was, i would always let him in.

6. I remember spooning against A, his aubergine skin against mine, so dark it made my Irish whiteness glow in the soft light of my bedroom.

7. I remember summer afternoons with J, lolling on a grubby mattress on the floor, we stuck our feet out of the window to cool ourselves and waved them at passers-by.

8.I remember another J, in a tent where we pressed our hands against each other’s mouths so that we would not wake the other campers

9.I remember, drunk on cava and sun, sharing a bed with my mother, we talked and giggled until the children, over-tired and fractious, told us to shut up and go to sleep.

10.I remember the stone cold dyke, sprawled across my pillows, fully dressed as she watched me through half closed, calculating eyes.

11. I remember sleeping with A in a tipi and waking to find snowflakes drifting across our sleeping bag.

12. I remember a caravan in Norfolk and a small child pretending to be asleep while waiting for Christmas morning.

13.I remember dozing with the un-named Greenham women while we waited for morning and yet another eviction.

14. I remember Ns’ bed, so dipped and broken that we rolled together into an inevitable embrace, blaming fate & bad carpentry

15.I remember sleeping with an almost famous comedian who insisted on leaning his double base case at the foot of my bed. It loomed over us all night.

16.I remember New Year’s Eve 1999, D threw pillows at my head when I talked in my sleep.

17.I remember Ms’ home-made bed – 6 feet off the floor , we slept like over-sized birds in a wooden nest

18.I remember an un-named man who woke me to tell me that my cats were staring at him.

19.I remember sharing a bed with my sister, we slept top to tail, whispering and watching the flames die down in the bedroom grate.

20.I remember another R, we would listen to the shipping forecast late at night and he, claiming to be a sailor, would tell me tales of the sea, in retrospect, I see that many of these stories were fictions.

21.I remember M who in my freezing flat, wore his badly darned yellow jumper as some defence against the cold.

22.I remember a cat, who while i slept, gave birth to 3 tabby kittens.

23.I remember A who swore me to secrecy.

24.I remember the night I lured a model home and the look of disbelief on the faces of those left in the club who watched us leave the club

25.I remember the husky dog, as the night went on she would move herself further and further up the bed, until, finally, her head would rest on a pillow, face staring into mine.

26. I remember small bear, wearer of tiny knitted trousers to stop his sawdust innards leaking into my bed.

27.I remember staggering home from a dentist, mouth full of blood and H who lay on top of the blanket, patting my hand until the pain killers kicked in

All, many, some of these may be true, un-true, mis-remembered.

A naming of parts…

A challenge from my Saturday writing class, 200 word erotic/sensual writing.

Your feet, bare, brown, gritty with memory of sand and salt, driving home sans shoes after a seaside day.
At night, my breath on the nape of your neck, most vulnerable of all skin, the neck invites confidences.
The scar on your belly, my tongue traces the ghosts of stitching. Bites just enough to make you wince.
Wrists too large for me to circle within my fingers, curiously hairless, the skin there softer than your hand.
The dent in your nose, bone long broken from a life before I knew you.
Your balls, strange fruit, cool to my touch, fitting exactly in a palm. Their weight a known certainty
Shoulder blades like bird wings, sharp against my skin, my breasts when I lie behind you.
The curve of your spine, arching towards me as I play out each vertebrae in turn.
Your nipples stiffening with just my out breath as I whisper your name I to your chest.
The smell of you, of musk and sweat and sex and cheap cigarettes and expensive cologne.

I name your parts, a mapping, a memory of senses, to keep you real, to keep you here.

And this is why girls love their ponies……. WARNING ADULT CONTENT

Sitting astride him, strong thighs wrapped round his waist, she cannot help but notice how delicate, even fragile his body is.
His chest is narrow, the skin pale, soft, almost hairless, she can see each rib, a delicate birdcage of bones, His body moving upwards in rhythmic movement. She focuses, starts to pay attention, her movements mirroring his, her buttocks, muscular, firm, lifting an inch or two away from his groin with each upward thrust.
He groans.
Pleasure ?
Pain ?
She wonders if she has been too firm, too strong.
His hip bones are sharp, razor like. She can almost imagine them grazing the delicate skin of her inner thighs and she moves with him, trying to keep the rhythm, feels herself get left behind and hoping to camouflage her loss of momentum, she leans towards his face. His breath is on her, soft, smelling of red wine and cigarettes.
With one hand, she gently traces the angles of his face, runs a finger over his lips, his mouth opens and his teeth nip at that finger, catching the end of her nail.
She moves her hand into his hair, short, a no nonsense no 2 all over. Her caress causes him to writhe, his head thrown back on the pillow and she is drifting, drifting away………….
The other one, the other one, her stolen moment that morning, he is creeping into this moment, his presence filing her, diminishing the man beneath her.

HIS muscles, taut, firm against her hands, her thighs, her bum. His every movement radiates strength, certainty, a muscularity of purpose. She moved happily against HIM, the rythmn one of knowingness, beyond conscious though.

At full gallop she is aware only of the speed, the strength, his power beneath her and when they are alone together, away from prying eyes, she gives her self totally to the moment.

Her jodphurs are tight.
Skin tight.

She pushes her self deeper into the saddle, feeling her cunt moisten, react to the pressure,the movement, the animal smell.

Her fingers curl into his mane, tugging tighter and tighter as she comes closer to orgasm and she kicks him on, pushing for a last blast of eye watering speed.

At the top of the hill, they both pause, re-gain their breath, his sides are heaving. She leans her head into his, rubbing her face on the soft velvetyness of his neck, his ears.

She sighs, stretches her legs, feels and savors the after shocks of tiny, tiny pin pricks of pleasure.

Shaking her head, dragging herself back to this presence, looks down at the man beneath her, her hips rotate, his prick held tight within her.

She rides him hard, pushes him to come, to cry out and then to sink, fall back on the pillow, passion spent.

And afterwards, when they lie together, in easy familiarity, his hand tracing lazy circles on her breasts, he wonders, not for the first time, what exactly it is she thinks about when they have sex.

strangers on a train……..

This is a story from your youth.

On days when the prosiac weighs you down, you unwrap this memory, precious as a jewel and re-live it.
It can still excite you, although you are not sure now if it is the act remembered or the fact of your youthful audacity that brings you to a shuddering climax.

You are 19, travelling to Switzerland, to meet up with some people you know only vaguely.
You have never travelled alone before and are trying hard to look bored, the seasoned traveller.

You notice the man [ although of course, in hindsight, he is just a boy] noticing you and you duck your head, pretend an interest in your book, your prison thin roll up.
When the ferry docks, you dont see him again and cold, tired, disorientated, you are too occupied with finding the right train to even remember his stare.

You are used to being looked at, slim , high cheek bnoned, almost shaven head. Your boots seem as if they must be too heavy for your frame to carry.
Then, you thought people looked at you because of the clothes. Now, looking back 30 years, you understand that men gazed at you because you seemed fragile, vulnerable, easily broken.

The sleeper train on a freezing January night is more than half empty and you settle yourself alone in the compartment. There is no need to impress now, so you peer out at the inky darkness, eager to see signs of foreigness, hints of other as the train moves through the Dutch landscape.

The door opens and the boy from the ferry falls in, a flurry of rucksack, guitar, duty free bag.
This memory belongs to a time before you learnt to be cautious, so you smile and he sits opposite you and then he smiles too.

Over the years, your memory has slipped a little, so you no longer have a clear sense of what he looked like, you can remember spikey brown hair,a battered leather jacket and big boots – he looks like all the young men you knew then.

You sit silently, staring at eachother and then he opens the duty free bag and offer you the bottle of brandy and you drink some, trying not to cough, to look uncool.

Equally silently, you offer a cigarette and you sit facing him as he carefully, deliberatly looks at every part of your body. His gaze is unhurried, intense. it is as if no -one has ever actually seen you before and as his eyes travel up your body, you feel a blush and then a deper, more pressing warmth rising in you.

The slence continues, now feels impossible to break.
You look directly at him and never taking your eyes off him, you lift your arms, pull off the black slighly moth eaten and much darned jumper and quickly, before you can think too carefully, you have removed your sex pistols t-shirt too.
Your breasts, small, neat, the skin white after a long winter. Your nipples harden, a combination of desire and the sudden cold night air.

And then you are standing, your legs straggling his as he sits, still looking at you.
Your striptease is neat rather than erotic, your eyes never move from his face.
A tiny part of your brain is caught up in one thought
“No-body come, no-body come, no-body come” – the words take on the rythmn of the train..

And then you are naked in front of him, young enough to invite his gaze, brazen in your own pleasure of your obvious power over him.

He stands, smiles and bends, pulls some levers on the seats and madly, magically, they recline, converting the whole compartment into a giant bed.

You laugh, it is the only sound either of you have made.

Carefully, you unzip his jacket, allowing your hands to creep under the t-shirt below, his skin is warm, a few hairs on his chest, his nipples are hard and you burrow your head into the warmth, bite down, hard, on his left nipple.

He gasps, but says nothing. Your tongue is sliding down his chest, teeth nipping at the skin as your head moves lower.

You shiver, partly with cold, partly with fear of discovery and partly with something else, soemnthing new you are discovering about yourself.

The belt on his jeans is stif, hard to undo- when his hand comes up, you wonder if you have gone too far, crossed a line, but he is just helping you.
he lifts his hips, so that you can wriggle his jeans and pants off and then you stop, just for a moment and look at his face again and then you are nipping and sucking and biting at his cock. You feel his stomach muscles tense, a groan of pleasure. You lift your mouth, leaving just the tip of your tongue on the very edge of his prick.
his head is thrown back, mouth moving silently and then lower your head again, pushing him towards a salty climax.

Afterwards, you accept a mouthful of brandy, swill it around your mouth, salt, hot, sweet on your tongue, in your throat.

Neither of you have said a word, you lie together, cigarette smoke, sweat and sex smells fill the compartment.

You doze, fall asleep and wake suddenly at the station where you need to change, panic stricken you grab clothes, bags, the train is threatening to pull out before you are ready.
You make it on to the platform, the boy throwing your last bag out as the train moves off…..

“Thank You” he shouts above the noise of the train – it is the only thing either of you have said.

You gather your belongings around you and light a cigarette as the train disappears from view.

The PLeasure Principle

THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE

Slowly, lazily, you run one finger tip along the length of his spine. He writhes at your touch, his back moving up to meet your touch. You lean forward, your lips almost touching his ear.
“Don’t move” you whisper and he is still.

You dip your head, hair brushing against his shoulder blades and gently, carefully, using the very tip of your tongue, you trace tiny circles down his back, he moves again and this time you are firmer, lifting your face away from his body, one palm pressing him back onto the mattress.

“Remember the rules” you say.

Deliberately you stretch across him, reaching out for the items you have arranged out of his sight.

You pick up the glass, allowing him to hear the chink of ice cubes and then, with no warning, you press a piece of ice into the small of his back.

He jerks away, makes an inarticulate yelp of surprise

“Shhhhhhhh” you allow the sound to continue as you paint shapes with ice up and down his spine, the skin quivers against the cold.

You reach towards the bed side table again, quietly, so that he can hear every sound.

You strike the match against the bed head, non-safety, you had to seek them out.

The smell of sulphur is immediate , strong, he moves away as far as he is able to, suddenly tense, unsure.

You light the candle and with the other hand you push the back of his head into the pillow, making sure that he cannot see what you are doing, but you know that he can hear everything, smell the warming wax.

You press another piece of ice into the natural dip which is the small of his back, the skin puckers with the sudden cold and before the ice can start to melt, make the skin damp, you carefully drip the hot wax into the frozen space.

His body arches, a moan of shock, and you are quick to move in again with more ice to cool the already setting wax.

Gently, you dip your head to kiss him, the base of his spine, his shoulder blades, the nape of his neck, the top of his head.

He moves his head towards your mouth and you allow this and finally you carefully unknot the scarves that have kept him so still and let him fall into your arms.

A New catergory for RubiesandDuels – Erotic & Sensual Fiction

What can I say ………………a new collection of short & longer pieces.

if you don’t like erotic writing, earthy language and body parts…………….please don’t read.