Happy 2023! It’s almost release day for a series of horror short stories revolving around Friday the 13th. I will be sharing each story on my post, one per day. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Brenda Clark Thomas with her story, The Surrogate…
Fun Fact:
I got the idea for my story after I did research on abandoned asylums. I learned that some of those places had back exits where they rolled coffins down a tunnel and into waiting hearses in order for the patients not to see how many people were dying.
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When Heather’s sister goes missing, she enters a photo contest to pay for a detective, but gets trapped in the abandoned sanatorium she’s photographing. An apparition with information appears but refuses to share until Heather agrees to do something she’s never dared to do.
Excerpt:
Ashley ran through the front doors, picked her way down the cleared stairs, and into the morgue. The flashlight’s beam hit the wall, and then the plaster littered floor. It moved in an arc and lit the bag and tripod. She swept the beam across the room. The camera lay on its side by the medicine cabinet. She walked over and picked it up.
The morgue door slammed shut.
Screaming, she ran to it, yanked the metal handle, and pounded. “Help! Help! I can’t get out!”
She raced to the window and climbed up on the chair. The police car, fire truck, and ambulance bounced down the road and out of sight.
How could they leave her like this? But then Ronnie Carpenter wasn’t the brightest. He was probably too busy trying to get in front of that firetruck with his lights and siren to think of anything else.
She sat beside the rucksack and started to cry. Her parents thought she was spending the night with Heather. No one would realize she was missing until tomorrow. For now, she was stuck in the basement.
Wait, the bum had escaped through the coffin chute, so maybe she could get out that way too. But what if he were hiding in there? Or there were snakes?
She swept the flashlight across the room and shuddered at the blood-smeared cement. Three black feathers lay in a pile. Someone performed voodoo in this room.
The camera came on all by itself. She picked it up, then stared in disbelief. The preview screen showed a transparent hand and fingers touching the basement wall.
The camera flipped to the next shot of a ghostly child barely discernable in the gloom.
The picture changed again. This time the face of the snarling bum with wicked eyes glared at her.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”
She switched the camera off and sat listening to the wind rattling the leaves outside the hole in the window. Clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering, she wrapped her arms around herself. She’d have to go through the tunnel, even if he were out there somewhere. It was better than staying here.
Far down the coffin chute, the rusty spring creaked as the door opened. Footsteps limped down the shaft.
Step. Slide. Step. Slide.
The bum jumped down into the room.
She swung the flashlight’s beam onto the man. A dirty, blood-soaked rag covered one eye.
He slapped his palm with a pipe. “Brandon said you was purty. Yessir, He was right. My little blondie.”
Bio:
Brenda Clark Thomas is the 2020 fiction runner-up of the prestigious Poets and Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award. She writes speculative fiction with a literary bent. Most recently, she’s concentrated on writing horror. Her flash fiction, “The Fire Man,” is slated to appear in a Crystal Lake Publishing anthology soon.
Happy 2023! It’s almost release day for a series of horror short stories revolving around Friday the 13th. I will be sharing each story on my post, one per day. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Tamrie Foxtail with her story, Strangers on a Street…
Fun Fact:
There’s a train that runs through my town around ten at night and occasionally (though with less predictability) in the mid-morning. On the one hand I love the sound of the train, on the other, there’s a little, macabre corner of my mind that waits for the sound of a crash.
*** Pre-Order the Friday the 13th stories for only 99 cents!!!
Amy Lee dreams of escaping her brutal husband. Following a chance encounter in a grocery store her dream becomes a reality. Or has it become a nightmare? The stranger down the street is threatening to turn over evidence that she’s guilty of murdering her own husband unless Amy helps rid him of his wife. Can Amy escape a madman’s threats? Or will she be forced to resort to murder to keep the freedom she’s only recently gained?
A Friday the 13th Short Story: 13 authors ~ 13 suspenseful stories. Murder and mayhem on Friday the 13th… Find each story in the series on Amazon.
Excerpt:
“Prison. Such a nasty place. And of course, they’ll think you murdered your husband so you could collect the life insurance. You’ll lose the money. When you get out of prison, you’ll have nothing. Except a record, of course. Such a pity.”
“The police will never believe I killed him.”
“Of course, they will. If they start to think the accident that killed your husband might not have been an accident…they’ll start to investigate. They’ll start asking who would have had reason to kill him. The spouse is always the first suspect. When I tell them I saw him hit you they’ll start checking into the number of times you’ve been in the ER. They’ll start looking at who he spent time with. They’ll come up with Maddie Crown. They’ll check her alibi and her husband’s of course. They’ll come up with a theory that you either found out about his lover—perhaps he told you he was going to leave you for her—they’ll come up with three motives.” He held up one finger.
“One, you found out about the affair and killed him.”
He held up a second finger. “Two, you killed him to end the abuse.”
A third finger joined the first two. “Three, you murdered your husband in order to collect the life insurance.” He shrugged. “Or perhaps all three. It’s simple. You waited by the tracks and flagged him down. You hit him with something in order to stun him or render him unconscious. It didn’t take strength to get the car from the RR crossing to the tracks. You inherit the house, the life insurance. You get out of an abusive marriage. You have plenty of motive. I have none. Just like you have no motive to murder my wife, while I’ll inherit plenty of life insurance, the house, etcetera.”
He stood and slipped the bracelet into his pocket. “I’ll be in touch, Amy.”
Bio:
Tamrie Foxtail was raised in the sunshine state. She married the best man she ever met, an Okie who brought her to the Sooner State.
She loves books, carousels, scrapbooking, and coffee. She works with the special education program in her local school district.
Happy 2023! It’s almost release day for a series of horror short stories revolving around Friday the 13th. I will be sharing each story on my post, one per day. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Connor Treadwaywith their story, Rosemary…
Fun Fact:
Connor Treadway is the pen name for a writing team based in northeastern Florida. When brainstorming ideas for the story, they realized “Old Florida” is the perfect setting for a horror story with Gothic flair.
*** Pre-Order the Friday the 13th stories for only 99 cents!!!
Disturbing dreams that feel all too real…
When Ivy Powers inherits her great-aunt’s gorgeous but neglected Victorian home, it feels like a dream come true. Recently divorced and eager to leave a job she hates, Ivy relocates from New Jersey to Passaway, Florida. The tiny hamlet is the type of place tourists visit for a taste of Old Florida–spanish moss dripping from craggy old oak trees and gators in the swamps.
Ivy’s dream soon turns into a nightmare when she begins renovations on the old house and its overgrown rose gardens. Her sleep is plagued by visions of a shrouded woman, a reflecting ball, and the scent of rosemary, which lingers even after she wakes. The mysterious old man who watches from an attic window next door also spooks her, until he persuades her to join him for tea in the garden, an afternoon custom he shared with his late wife.
Are the dark forces invading Ivy’s dreams a threat…or a warning? Can she find the truth before it’s too late or will the garden claim her and bury her with the rest of its secrets?
A Friday the 13th Short Story: 13 authors ~ 13 suspenseful stories. Murder and mayhem on Friday the 13th… Find each story in the series on Amazon.
Excerpt:
Tonight, the pockets of shadows created by great swags of Spanish moss and dense sprawl of bushes seemed darker and denser. Instead of guarding the garden’s secrets, the inky depths yawned like gaping chasms into some kind of hellish underground. Rosemary hunched in the wheelchair, pulling the blanket higher as if to ward off some vague threat.
“I’m safe here,” she reminded herself in a whisper, slowly scanning the area as if to identify the source of her disquiet.
Everything appeared unchanged—the sprawling canopy of live oak limbs, the looping ropes of kudzu and spiky palmetto fans, the path of cracked stone pavers that zig-zagged off in both directions, the squares of yellow light from nearby houses masked by leafy branches, the gleam of the sun’s final glow flaming ominously in the mirrored gazing ball set atop a pedestal on the other edge of the clearing where Rosemary had set up the bistro table and chairs years ago after she and Jeremiah were first married.
Finally, she realized what was different. It was the silence. No cicadas sang. No whippoorwills called from the woods. Not even a mosquito hummed in the clinging shroud of moisture. Usually, summer nights buzzed with a riot of sound—the deafening roar of cicadas, the hoot of barred owls, the scrabble of lizards in the undergrowth, the muted sounds of domestic activities as neighbors settled in for the night, the musical clatter of windchimes, the huff and puff of wind as if the garden itself was inhaling and exhaling.
The quiet swelled into a pulsing presence that filled the garden, throbbing against Rosemary’s eardrums, immobilizing her body, blurring her vision. She wondered if she was having a heart attack, but the sharp snap of fingers inches from her nose pulled her from the invisible mire.
“Goddamn, woman. It’s too early to fall asleep.” Jeremiah’s tone was harsh, impatient, angry. Blinking to clear her sight, Rosemary cringed away from her husband’s scowl which suddenly transformed into a benevolent grin that was somehow even more frightening. “Don’t want you to miss our evening tradition, my dear. Time for me and you. Together. Just us. All alone in your beautiful garden.”
Bio:
Connor Treadway is a pen name for the writing team behind Gothic thrillers and mysteries. The duo is based in northeastern Florida.
Happy 2023! It’s almost release day for a series of horror short stories revolving around Friday the 13th. I will be sharing each story on my post, one per day. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Mark Edward Jones with his story, Hell is Empty…
Fun Fact:
Three characters in Hell is Empty later play roles in the Detective Henry Ike Pierce series.
*** Pre-Order the Friday the 13th stories for only 99 cents!!!
The worse monsters are human.
A man’s wife dies unexpectedly in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and his teenage foster daughter, Miomir, comes under suspicion after four of the girl’s classmates die by poisoning. Professor Filíp Nekola must protect his younger wards, siblings brought to him six years earlier when a government assassin, Karanosz Tasev, killed the children’s parents. A detective appears, offering information that Tasev seeks Miomir.
Nekola is detained by the Czech government’s secret police, the StB, and the children are left alone with Miomir and her friends. They witness the teenagers performing a dark ritual to destroy Miomir’s enemies. Filíp Nekola must escape the secret police, rescue the children, and stop the assassin Tasev before he steals another life. The worst monsters are human.
A Friday the 13th Short Story: 13 authors ~ 13 suspenseful stories. Murder and mayhem on Friday the 13th… Find each story in the series on Amazon.
Excerpt:
Pipe smoke blanketed Stepan Hrubý’s face. The boy flapped his hands and made a show of waving away the pungent haze.
Filíp Nekola clenched the pipe’s bit with his teeth, pulled off his right glove, and yanked his handkerchief from a pocket. He wiped his eyes, then glanced down at his companion. A smile broke across his face as he stroked the boy’s dark hair. “Three months today, young man. She grew so fond of you and Eliska.” Filíp shook his head and sighed. “My dear Berta.”
Stepan rubbed his hand along the top of the marker’s rough granite stone. “Sorry, Papa Filíp. Remember, though, the best day of the year is coming in twelve days.”
Filíp nodded. “Yes, Christmas is coming, and it will be my first without her.” He wiped a cheek. “But we will try to make it merry.”
The boy pulled his winter cap tighter around his ears. “Yes, sir. It is Lisky’s and my favorite holiday. Why do some people not celebrate?”
“You are speaking of Miomir?”
Stepan frowned, thinking of the older girl the Nekolas had fostered. “She is one, but many stores have nothing in their windows. Lisky says—”
“Never mind. So … where is your sister?”
Stepan shrugged. “She likes to look at the gravestones.”
Eliska emerged through leafless bushes near a marble bench. “I am here.” Stepan’s sister kneeled next to him and examined the dates, touching them as she read. “April 3, 1927, and September 13, 1974. Are those correct?”
“Yes. The stone carver did well.”
“Barunka is a funny name,” Stepan said, then covered his mouth. “Sorry.”
Filíp nodded. “Yes, she did not like it—a family name, I believe, and it is why I called her Berta.”
“I like the black stone,” Eliska said.
“I do, too.” He smiled. “Thank you both for coming with me.”
Stepan smirked. “We wanted to come with you instead of staying with the witch.”
Eliska giggled.
Filíp put a finger to his lips and scowled, determined to act as if he did not feel the same. “No, no. We should not talk about Miomir in such a manner. She is sixteen, and teenagers are rebellious, among other things. I am sure she grieves in her own way.” He took each child’s hand. “My feet are freezing, and I do not doubt yours are, too. Come along. The taxi is waiting.”
Bio:
Mark retired from higher education finance in 2017 and started writing as a new career. The first of the Detective Henry Ike Pierce series, Peculiar Activities, was published in October 2021. The second in the series, Shadowed Souls, released on Halloween 2022. A Gentleman from the Darkness was his first short story, and his first in a Friday the 13th series.
Happy 2023! It’s almost release day for a series of horror short stories revolving around Friday the 13th. I will be sharing each story on my post, one per day. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Robert Herold with his story, The Devil Sheds a Tear…
Fun Fact:
I imagined some of the Seattle area’s rich and famous (unnamed of course) were actually members of murderous covens!
*** Pre-Order the Friday the 13th stories for only 99 cents!!!
Hiding from a homicidal coven of modern witches, Steven Metcalf thinks he is safe. The devil-worshipers are not through with him, and a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues. Will joining forces with a witch-hunter save his life?
A Friday the 13th Short Story: 13 authors ~ 13 suspenseful stories. Murder and mayhem on Friday the 13th… Find each story in the series on Amazon.
Excerpt:
I made it to the door and yanked the knob with sweaty hands, but it wouldn’t open. I swung around. Ken emerged from beneath a library table across the room. He held the knife. Tim lay flat on his back with a pool of blood around his head. Though I’d never been violent in the past, I hoped I’d killed him.
Ken strode over to the body and commanded, “Get up.”
Tim stood. He straightened his nose, fetched two teeth from the floor, and reinserted them. Then he lifted the hem of his robe and swiped blood from his face. He looked at me and grinned. “Naughty, naughty.”
Bio:
Robert Herold has had a fascination with horror since he was a child and his mother refused to allow him to watch creature features on tv. She caved in (well, not literally). Herold hopes his books give you the creeps in the best way possible.
Happy 2023! It’s almost release day for a series of horror short stories revolving around Friday the 13th. I will be sharing each story on my post, one per day. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Chris Farris with his story, Stripes…
Interesting Fact:
The first version of “Stripes,” written years ago, was a rather vanilla “war in Iraq” military story based upon real life characters I knew during my time in the Arkansas Army National Guard. Those characters have changed significantly in this story, so no risk of meeting a real Josiah should you choose to visit the Natural State. Their accents, cares and personalities, however, live on.
“They Call Me Beaver,” the original story, did not have the punch that I was looking for but, after a night of tossing and turning, it occurred to me that with some changes it might make a fine story of mayhem and murder. In Beaver (Josiah) I had the character I wanted, but I needed a hook, something strange and menacing. My granddaughter and I had just visited Turpentine Creek, a local Arkansas big cat rescue park, and the way one of those tigers looked at us gave me all the inspiration I needed. Still, the problem remained, how to put a tiger in a combat zone? That proved to be easier than I suspected.
Perhaps the most far-fetched part of my story, the Baghdad tiger, is based on reality. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Baghdad Zoo was partially destroyed. The zoo workers, fearing for their lives, suspended the feeding and care of the 650+ animals living there. During their absence, the zoo was looted, cages were opened, herd animals were stolen and eaten by a hungry populace and multiple predators (including twenty-three lions) were released into the city. Of the original animals (including Mandor, a 20-year-old Siberian tiger owned by Uday Hussein,) only 35 survived their wartime ordeal. The U.S. military rounded up many of the escaped lions using armored fighting vehicles and returned all but four to their captivity. Those that would not return were killed.
The wildlife community responded quickly once the situation was known. South African conservationist, Lawrence Anthony traveled with two assistants into the heart of the danger zone to bring relief to the remaining animals. The U.S. Army assumed command of the zoo, stopping the looting and vandalism and providing a secure place for Mr. Anthony and other volunteers from the Thula Thula game reserve, Wildaid, Care for the Wild International, and IFAW to work.
The zoo reopened in 2003 following improvements and renovations by U.S. Army engineers. It was populated by eighty-six animals, including the surviving nineteen lions as well as tigers, brown bears, wolves, foxes, jackals, camels, ostriches, badgers and some primates that had been collected from the Hussein family’s private menageries.
So “Stripes” is a strange amalgamation of personal military experience and a surreal story of war-time collateral damage. If you are interested in the whole story of the Baghdad Zoo, see Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence’s book, Babylon’s Ark. As a side note, during an ill-considered 2003 party held in the zoo a U.S. Army Sergeant had his arm severely mauled by one of the captive tigers. The animal was consequently shot multiple times and bled to death in its cage.
Life is, sometimes, stranger (and sadder) than fiction.
*** Pre-Order the Friday the 13th stories for only 99 cents!!!
Meet Josiah Poopart, high school dropout, construction worker and part time soldier. His friends call him Jo, most everyone else calls him Beaver (because of his buck teeth.) He’s in love with a stripper named Cinnamon and enjoys reading hard-boiled fiction with his best friend, Harmon. He’d tell you he lives a pretty good life, even though his daddy left when he was young, and his momma got blown up in a freak mobile home accident. Everything else is working out fine. The only fly in his ointment is that everyone around him keeps dying. It’s inconvenient, but what can you do? They say those with thirteen letters in their name are cursed. But Josiah doesn’t see it that way. As far as he’s concerned, one man’s bad luck is another’s good fortune. And fortune, somehow, always favors Josiah.
A Friday the 13th Short Story: 13 authors ~ 13 suspenseful stories. Murder and mayhem on Friday the 13th… Find each story in the series on Amazon.
Excerpt:
“Then you killed him and Roger!” Her words came out as a hoarse shriek. She sounded like an oversized crow. It made me jump.
“I never did.” I yelled back.
She whipped around with a giant butcher knife she’d got from the block. “The stupid sheriff may not believe it, but I know you did it. I saw you out by his Jeep. You—you—” She took a big hitching sob and slapped the tears from her cheeks. When she spoke again, she was real quiet and real mean. “You get the hell out of my house, you little pervert, or I’ll stab you through the heart.”
I thought about arguing, but she lurched toward me from the counter. Not fast, but steady-like. She had a look in her eye that told me she meant it. I ain’t afraid of much, but like I said earlier, that woman had a way of coming at you that could be intimidating. At that moment, I don’t think I meant more to her than a cockroach you step on and kick to the corner. That knife looked sharp, too. I didn’t figure I wanted to bleed out on her kitchen floor, so…I split.
Like I said, that was the last time I saw her and, of course, I didn’t end up finding out where Cinnamon went.
I guess that argument sparked Mrs. Smith’s interest in food again. When they found her dead on the kitchen floor, she’d shoved most of an apple pie down her gullet. She’d got it all the way back behind her tongue and packed her throat solid with apples and sugar crust. She’d smeared it all on her cheeks and it had dripped down the front of her rooster dress. She’d even got it in her eyes and up her nose. She was a mess. The coroner ruled it accidental death. He said it was asphyxiation by airway obstruction. Death by apple pie. That’s just sad.
Bio:
Christopher Farris lives in a very old, very small house in a very old, very small town nestled deep in a valley of the Boston Mountains of Northwest Arkansas. His novels, The Fountain, and Intersection: A Trucker’s Christmas Carol are available at Amazon.com, as are his Friday the 13th short stories.
Happy 2023! It’s almost release day for a series of horror short stories revolving around Friday the 13th. I will be sharing each story on my post, one per day. Today, I’m pleased to welcome DJ FitzSimons with her story, Eyes to Die For…
Fun Fact:
I am from a neighboring town of the one used in my story.
*** Pre-Order the Friday the 13th stories for only 99 cents!!!
James Bucknall can get any woman he wants with one sultry look from his bewitching blue eyes. Handsome, charming, and clean-cut, he’s the epitome of a GQ guy. James is also a maniacal serial killer, who murders women as casually as he dates them. At least that is his modus operandi until he meets Frankie Wilson.
There’s something entrancing about the sad, young woman, that has captivated James’s interest, and right now, she is more appealing alive rather than dead. The surprising discovery of Frankie’s connection to James’s last victim, Charlie, arouses the killer’s interest to unexpected heights.
And that’s when Charlie’s ghost decides to intervene.
Excerpt:
Tonight, I’m on the hunt, but I can’t seem to get into it. I’ve danced with a couple of women who look like they spent hours getting ready to come out here, but they’re just not doing it for me. I’m just leaving the dance floor with yet another bimbo, where I feel someone’s eyes on me. Instinct makes me stop and look up.
A blonde. Nothing special, but she’s pretty in a natural kind of way, though it’s tough to see as the lighting isn’t great right here. But even in the dimness I can clearly see she’s on the hook.
I ditch my dance partner at the bar. She doesn’t seem to care as there are already horny, jock-types angling to get her attention. Mine’s shifted to the girl I just saw. I plan to find her.
Bio:
DJ is originally from London. She currently publishes short stories which are set in various parts of the U.K.
Happy 2023! It’s almost release day for a series of horror short stories revolving around Friday the 13th. I will be sharing each story on my post, one per day. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Michelle Godard-Richer with her story, Avenging Angel…
Fun Fact:
For this story, I researched the inner workings of the car trunk, including how spacious they are.
*** Pre-Order the Friday the 13th stories for only 99 cents!!!
A Friday the 13th Short Story: 13 authors ~ 13 suspenseful stories. Murder and mayhem on Friday the 13th…Find each story in the series on Amazon.
On Friday the 13th, sweet college student and barista, Maya Pendleton, leaves Rowena’s Coffee to walk home alone. The streets of Gideon’s Hollow are empty. The locals believe the spirits of the witches from nearby Salem roam on this cursed night, seeking revenge on the descendants of those who burnt them at the stake.
Maya’s lonely footsteps echo through the empty street in a steady rhythm until they’re interrupted by another pair. They belong to Rand Roosevelt¾an evil man with murder on his mind. But he picks the wrong night, the wrong victim, and he messes with the wrong witch.
Excerpt:
Maya’s eyes fluttered open to reveal darkness. The floor moved beneath her as a waft of exhaust fumes turned her stomach.
Where am I?
She shifted her head and the world tilted as a sharp pain shot through her head from the base of her skull, jogging her memory.
The creep from the coffee shop. What an ass!
Maya moved to reach around the back of her head to assess the damage. Her elbow hit something hard. Her funny bone tingled, then her heart pounded in her ears as the smallness of the space suffocated her.
The urge to panic was almost impossible to resist, but she needed to resist to have any chance of escaping this horrible predicament.
She rolled onto her back. A handle glowed above her head in the darkness. She stuck her hands out and moved them along a hard surface, and the horrid reality of her situation became clear.
Metal. He stuck me in the trunk of a car!
Her breathing accelerated. Her thoughts scrambled like a puddle of eggs, and she gasped for air. She forced deep breaths into her lungs and her brain cleared.
Maya reached around the back of her head, careful not to smack her elbow again, and ran her hand over a large bump below her ponytail. Her hair wasn’t sticky, so thankfully, she had no open wound to contend with. But considering she’d lost consciousness and the lingering dizziness; she must be concussed.
Once more, her gaze shifted to the glowing handle over her head once more.
A trunk release!
She tugged on the handle, and nothing happened. With the handle in her grasp, she pushed on the trunk with her feet at the same time. Nothing.
Her captor must have anticipated that means of escape and disconnected the handle. Not escaping, giving up, and dying at age twenty wasn’t an option. Her mother must already be losing her mind with worry and Maya was all she had.
Now what?
Bio:
Michelle Godard-Richer is a Criminology graduate with a passion for crime, human behavior, and the written word. She is also a thriller and romance author living in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. She writes edge-of-your-seat, suspenseful stories with strong protagonists and diabolical villains.
Please help me welcome today’s guest, L. M. Gonzalez…
She didn’t believe in true love.
He vowed never to love again.
Excerpt:
The place was decorated with twinkle lights and red, green, and gold garland. And then her eyes settled on Ray. Her breath caught in her throat as she glimpsed the bracelet of a gold watch at his wrist. He seemed a different man than the one at the Adult Center and the one in jeans who’d gone to her house. He seemed charming and sexy and likeable.
“They have a variety of entrees,” Ray said.
“Oh.” She hadn’t looked, so she opened her menu.
“What do you like?”
Jennifer stared, mesmerized with him. Oh, I don’t know—you. He grinned, and embarrassment filled her. He probably knew what she was feeling. And she
would not feel that way, not with him. Especially not with him.
“I’ll eat salad. I’m not very hungry,” she said.
“Umm…eating dinner together is the first step of the foreplay to romance, didn’t you know?”
“Romance isn’t sex.” She glared at him.
His smile didn’t falter. “Eating can be an aphrodisiac. Feeding each other can be very romantic.”
Jennifer swallowed hard at his words. “I’m not feeding you anything.”
“Jenny, this isn’t going to work if you don’t cooperate.” Ray winked at her.
Her nipples peaked at his wink, and she was glad she’d worn a scarf. She picked up her glass of water.
“My name is Jennifer, not Jenny.”
“You don’t like nicknames?”
“Not from you.”
“I think I know now why you’re blocked in the love-and-romance thing. You’re tight. You need to loosen up.”
L.M. Gonzalez writes about the loves and lives of Latinas and the challenges of romance the second time around. Her stories, set against a backdrop of strong Latino culture blended with an American lifestyle, are refreshing and capture the essence of everyday Hispanic life.
Please help me welcome today’s guest, Shirley Goldberg…
How I Write the Smoochy Scenes
Some readers like it hot, while others prefer it sweet or steamy. Despite the title of my new book, A Little Bit of Lust, writing love scenes is more about the feels and less about lust.
Here are the first two sentences from an early chapter in A Little Bit of Lust. The main characters, Lucy and Deon, take a trip to the beach. Their friendly relationship changes that afternoon. No, this isn’t a spoiler since this tidbit is in the blurb for the book.
Later that same evening, Deon has these thoughts:
It wasn’t easy kissing his best friend.
Well, not true. Once they made it up the sidewalk and through the door, him fumbling with the key, it was easy, way too easy.
Writing smooching scenes is part of the job of the writer ‘cause someone’s gotta do it. If I know my characters well, writing love scenes comes naturally as a logical progression of the relationship.
Everyone’s idea of what is appealing in a love scene differs. When I’m writing a smoochy scene that’s early in the book, I’m all about discovery, going slowly, a few moans, lots of kissing and…talking. My characters need time to warm up to one another.
The couple are connecting and dialog, brief bits of banter, teasing, and even a few questions, add to the fun. Sexy scenes can be playful. They can be fun and gentle. A drawn out smoochy scene with agonizingly slow undressing is a way to show the emotional connection between characters.
As a reader, I’m open to all kinds of love scenes, from playful to serious, from silly to steamy. As a writer, steamy is a new thing for me. So far, my sex scenes are closed-door, so when the characters get heated, the door swings shut and the reader imagines the rest.
But I’m working on a book that takes place in Crete, the largest island in Greece, (I lived there for eleven years.) and my heroine, a widow, rediscovers love and sex. I’ve left the door ajar after a long buildup to the major sex scene. No buzz words and no specific naming of moving parts, by the way.
Sometimes, the perception of “steamy” depends on that reader’s experience. When my first book, Middle Ageish, came out, one reader told me she thought my sex scenes were “pretty hot.” This surprised me because the love scenes are closed door.
Foreshadowing of a sex scene can start way before the couple ever embrace and go on for pages. That’s emotion and perhaps a little banter at its best. Here’s a brief example where the characters, Lucy and Deon, are dancing to a band at their favorite hangout:
“I haven’t felt like singing for a while anyway.” Deon turned Lucy gently and pulled her in again, sang along with Elvis about rivers flowing and fools rushing. “I am annoying you, aren’t I?”
“Not at all.” Dancing with Deon was… intimate. Lucy lifted her head. His lips were six inches away, full lips.
“You have Elvis lips,” she said and put her head back down on his chest.
The reader gets the hint from this short teaser that Lucy and Deon will connect in a more intimate way later on in the story.
If the feels shine through and the characters connect with each other, I’m doing my job as a writer.
Diana Gabaldon, who knows a thing or two about writing sex scenes, says, “Where most beginning writers screw up (you should pardon the expression) is in thinking that sex scenes are about sex. A good sex scene is about the exchange of emotions, not bodily fluids.”
I agree. And I’m open to a variety of love scenes in my reads.
What do you think?
Please post a comment. Are you a sweetie when it comes to love scenes or do you like them steamy?
Anyone interested in more of author Diana Gabaldon’s wisdom on the subject may like to read her excellent book, I Give You My Body, How I Write Sex Scenes. I’d also recommend her Outlander series, but you’re probably well aware of it already.
How many second chances will she give him?
Blurb
Love-cynical Lucy Bernard delights in her independence. Baking, all things Instagram, the occasional special guy, and most of all hanging out with best friends Deon Goldbloom and Phoebe Karis. But when Deon kisses Lucy at the beach on a chilly afternoon, the two friends jump into a lust-filled romantic weekend. So what’s with slotting her into “ignore” status afterward?
Deon Goldbloom is a widower who can’t move on after his wife’s death. Is he a little crazy spending a sexy few days with Lucy and calling it the best time he’s had in four years? Yeah. Except blue Monday comes calling, and Deon isn’t ready for the guilt.
Lucy wonders how a smoochy weekend turns into a friends-with-benefits disaster. And Deon wonders if he’s made the biggest mistake of his life putting Lucy on “ignore.” Using all his nerdy charms, he launches a campaign to bring Lucy around. Maybe they can chart a course back to one another if Lucy will only forgive him.
Excerpt from A Little Bit of Lust
Lucy aimed her phone at Deon’s Patrick Dempsey hair. The young Patrick.
“Throw your head back. Run your hand through your––”
“No way.”
“Come on. Unbutton a few buttons.” He’d been working out more, she could tell by the swell in his arms and chest. The nerd was looking good.
“Stop it.” He held his hand up blocking her view.
“You’re all gussied up for this eight-minute dating thing. I just wanted to mark the occasion.” She climbed up the ladder. No fun teasing Deon if he wouldn’t play.
“You tried on this crap already?” He gestured to the bed where her dress, jeans, and tops lay splayed like scarecrows minus the stuffing.
“Pardon?” She shot him her most stern teacher look. “Deon Goldbloom, it isn’t crap. You’re supposed to be my calming influence.”
“Relax, Ms. Bernard. I’m here, aren’t I?”
True. Irritatingly present, like a fungus.
“What happened? Did Noelle cancel?” Noelle was their friend who taught at the high school.
Lucy took a few shots and climbed down to reposition the ladder. “Yeah. Phoebe needed help.”
“You’re saying I’m your last resort?” He looked genuinely hurt.
“Of course. You’re a guy.” Lucy smirked. “I didn’t even know you were coming.”
“Not just any guy. A guy with sensitivity and extraordinary taste.”
“Sensitivity, my ass.”
“Are you bickering?” called a voice from the hall, and Lucy’s daughter, Lily, flew into the room to say goodbye. Lucy wobbled on the ladder, almost dropping her phone. Lily was on her way out for dinner with her grandparents, who lived one town over, in Hamden. “Play nice, you two.” She shot them an amused glare.
“Hey, Lily, nice to see you.” Deon and Lily hugged. “When do you start the internship?” Lily, visiting for the weekend from grad school, had snagged a much-coveted internship at the NPR Boston station.
“I’m so excited I can’t stand myself,” she snorted and ran a hand through her wild mane. “Staying with my besties. It’ll be a blast.”
Lily and Deon caught up for a few minutes while Lucy took more photos and rearranged the flat lay.
“So,” Lily said, eyeing her mother on the ladder, “ice cream dating is a thing now?”
“Crap, I hope not,” Deon laughed.
Lucy was glad Lily barged in with her freshness and humor, and her white jeans shorts and tiny, blue, raggedy-cool top. Her daughter disappeared a moment later, and Lucy got off the ladder.
She should stop picking on Deon. A tad sick that getting under his skin had become a game. Forty-seven years old, and she’s playing games. Pitiful.
What she’d like to do is punch him in the mouth. Since she kick-boxed Mondays and Wednesdays, this wasn’t an idle threat, even way inside her head.
Only a month ago, her legs had turned to marshmallows when he touched her. Now she’d happily crush his thumb in a vise. Or stomp on his big toe with her hiking boots and ask him, “How does that feel, dear?”
Author Bio
Shirley Goldberg is a writer, novelist, and former ESL and French teacher who’s lived in Paris, Crete, and Casablanca. She writes about men and women of a certain age starting over. Her website http://midagedating.com offers a humorous look at dating in mid-life, and her friends like to guess which stories are true. A Little Bit of Lust is her third book in the series Starting Over, although all her books are standalone. Shirley’s characters all believe you should never leave home without your sense of humor and she agrees.
Author Alicia Dean 