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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

WIP Wednesday - Sheep Shifter and BWWM

Authors needed - all genres! Are you an author who'd like to share a 100- to 200-word blurb about a current work in progress on a future WIP Wednesday? If so, please send an e-mail to Erin O'Riordan (erinoriordan AT sbcglobal DOT net).

This week I'm editing "Sheep Shifter" for the Breathless Press anthology Ravaged, an all-shifter anthology. The short story is accepted, but just on the first round of edits. I just went through this with my story for the Breathless anthology Ad-dick-tion Vol. 2 - there are four or five rounds of edits.

Over the weekend, I kept running with the Person of Interest fanfic I started on Friday (see ...in which the term 13-inch is thrown about shamelessly). Yes, my level of obsession with a Thursday-night network TV show is a little bit sad at the moment. Yes, one does not count fanfics as "real" writing, because one receives pre-created characters from someone else's imagination. They're lazy writing, and I thought I'd given up on them forever when I became a professional in 2007.

The last TV show that I wrote fanfics for was Homicide: Life on the Street, and that was when I was in college, more than a decade ago. Inspired by someone else's crazy Homicide/Pinky and the Brain crossover called "Timmy and the Frank," I even wrote a Homicide/Scooby Doo crossover. (It may be lost, or it may be hiding in a box of old diaries from the '90s.)

Guinevere and Lancelot - Free Art License
One thing keeping me from self-censoring and forcing myself not to write these things that cross my mind is knowing that fanfics are a time-honored literary tradition, dating back at least to the days of the wandering troubadours. They would regale their audiences with tales of Arthurian legend. When the affair between Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot proved to be a crowd-pleaser, the troubadours embellished upon it. At least, this is one theory I read years ago. In more modern times, the fanfic phenom can be blamed largely on - or credited largely to - Star Trek fans.

For an interesting fanfic that takes place right after the end of the The Hunger Games (the first book), go to Mumfection to read Eschelle's work. The book blog BookishTemptations collects Twilight fanfics.

This is about half of what I wrote between Friday night and Sunday night - the lead-up, the teaser. This is raw, unedited, the first and only draft. WIP Wednesday seems like as a good a place to post this as any. If you're following along, this would obviously happen before the events of Friday's fic. I'll post the second part next Wednesday.

Next I may get inspired to return to working on Billy's Color Palette, my interracial-erotica literary collaboration with Ken Charles. I suddenly seemed to remember working on another BWWM (Black Woman/White Man) story with Ken.

Joss Carter sighed and looked down at her drink, which she’d barely touched. As usual, crossing paths with John had preceded an extremely stressful night at work. They both needed to blow off some steam. He’d taken her up on her suggestion that they hit the bar and was on his second beer, but he’d barely said a word to her the whole time. Typical.

She definitely wasn’t drunk, so it must have been the tension between them that made her say it. “John, how long has it been?”

He set his bottle down, but he didn’t look at her. “How long has what been, Detective?”

“You know,” she said, wishing they weren’t in such a public place. No one sat near them, and the bartender seemed preoccupied at the other end of the bar, but the room suddenly felt too crowded. “Since you’ve been with a woman.”

“A long time,” he said, still not looking at her.

“It’s been a long time for me, too. Too long.” She paused to breathe deeply. “Have you ever thought about – you and me?”

He looked at her then, his cold blue eyes seeming to stare down deep inside her. “Too many…complications.”

She took another sip of the drink she didn’t really want. “What if there were no complications? No strings, no feelings. Just…stress relief. We both need it.”

He didn’t answer her, but turned back to face the bar and finished his drink. Her cheeks flushed, Carter calmly reached into her purse, counted out the bills to pay for her unfinished drink and set them down. She got up and walked away without so much as a goodbye – she’d already said too much.

As she neared the door, Carter suddenly felt John Reese’s arms around her. He pulled her into the hall leading to the ladies’ room and said into her ear, “Is this what you need, Josselyn? Do you want me this close to you, touching you?”

She closed her eyes; the way he said her name gave her familiar shivers of pleasure. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this way. “I think so, John,” she said, trying to sound as cool as possible as his firm grip on her loosened. “I think I need this. The question is, do you? Could you ever be that…vulnerable…with me? Naked?”

He made a sound somewhere between a deep laugh and feral growl. “This isn’t the place.” He let go of her; they stood eye to eye.

“I know a place,” she said.

****

“Where do you know this place from, Detective?” John looked around the motel room, and Carter figured he was plotting an emergency escape route. “Crime scene?” He took off his black jacket and laid it carefully on the back of the chair.

“I didn’t hear you offering to take me back to your place, John,” she said, emphasizing his name. So he was back to calling her “Detective,” was he? Did she make him nervous? She supposed he had reason to be; she had, after all, betrayed him to the Feds before her sudden change of heart.

“That would be…complicated, Josselyn.”

She watched him take off his shoulder holster. She was strapped too – still wearing her service weapon, of course – but watched with fascination as John took out the semiautomatic, checked the safety, then stashed it under the bed. Hidden in case anyone kicked in the door, but accessible. He did the same with the large-caliber revolver from his other side, then unbuttoned his shirt.

Carter started to undress, setting her weapon next to the TV. She let her jacket and blouse fall into a loose pile on the floor. John sighed as he laid his shirt over his jacket on the chair. Underneath that suit, he looked exactly as she’d imagined him: athletic, but not overly muscular, with a smooth chest. Since he didn’t strike her as the waxing type, it must’ve been natural.

“I did that, didn’t I?” she said as he turned to her, noticing the small, jagged scar on his belly that could only have come from a bullet wound. She may not have pulled the trigger, but it had been her fault all the same. He’d almost died that night.

“That’s complicated, too.” He held out his hand and she took it, accepting his invitation to come in closer. She resisted the urge to run her hand over the scar, afraid it might still cause him pain.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I know.” He pulled her in closer, running his hands down her sides, and Carter wanted more. She heard – felt – him inhale deeply as she reached back to unhook her bra. To his credit, John didn’t go straight for her breasts.

She was also grateful he didn’t try to kiss her. That seemed too intimate, too…complicated. It did feel good to be pressed up against him, though, his long fingers raking through her hair softly. Okay, he smelled slightly like beer, but also like a soft aftershave that reminded her of cloves. He hadn’t shaved recently, though. She could feel the barest hint of stubble on the underside of his jaw.

She wasn’t sure which of them made the first move over toward the bed, but soon they stood on opposite sides. She watched him unbuckle his belt, then turned her back, almost shy, while she stripped down to her favorite pink lace panties. Carter was glad she’d worn them, though she couldn’t quite explain why she had.  

She turned back around in time to see him unstrap the K-Bar knife from his leg. If he were anyone else, she’d have been alarmed at the arsenal he traveled with. She’d arrested gangsters who carried fewer weapons. Hell, she hadn’t been that strapped over in the Gulf.

Their eyes met, and she returned his smile. “I like to be prepared,” he said, almost apologizing.

“Speaking of which…” She reached into her purse and pulled out a condom, then slid it over to his side of the bed. Then she took off the panties, challenging him to step out of his last remaining bit of clothing, those black boxers.

He accepted her challenge. Damn – talk about weaponry. 




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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Damn, this was HOT! I love the thought of these two together, please write more stories about John and Joss, pretty please?!?