Archive for April, 2009
Menage Week: The Problem with Menages by Alice Gaines
The Problem with M?nages
I love m?nages.? I’m not alone in that.? Whenever I ask readers what their favorite types of stories are, inevitably, someone says “m?nage,” and everyone else agrees.? What’s the appeal?? Simple.? If one man is delicious, two or more men make a sensual smorgasbord.
I’ve always written M/F/M threesomes.? Other writers do other combinations, and they’re wonderful, too.? But, I’m selfish – I want both men concentrated on the woman and her pleasure.? You see, I always put myself into my heroine when I write, and I get the same wonderful sexual experiences she does.? Vicariously, of course, but I think you’ll get my drift.? As sexy as two men loving each other is, I prefer both of them totally devoted to making me a very happy lady.? That’s just personal preference.? Your mileage may vary.
For someone who’s been writing romance since 1990 and has been published since 1995, M/F/M initially created a bit of a problem.? As much as I love nice guy heroes, no one gets turned on by a wimp.? A good romance hero is not the kind of guy who’ll share his woman.? So, what could make him allow another man to pleasure his mate?
This was a sticky problem for me, and I tried various ways to get around it.? In the first M/F/M scene I ever wrote, the second man was actually an android the heroine had programmed to look and act exactly like the hero.? So, in this sense, the second man was also the hero.? But that was just one scene in an M/F story.
Next, I toyed with the idea that the two men were identical twins.? I thought that would make them identify with each other enough to allow them to share.? Plus, I gave them a reason they had to cooperate – the heroine needed the sperm from two men to conceive the heir to her throne.? My e-book from Changeling, Eria’s M?nage, was born.
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I gave the men personalities the exact opposite of each other.? Tad was the cool, calculating intellectual, and Brath was the near-Brute.? In fact, Brath hardly ever spoke in more than monosyllables and grunts.? But, that gave me something else that was a lot of fun.? They could pretend to be each other, and so my heroine could never be sure which man was doing what to her.
I followed that theme with a contemporary short that will be out from Harlequin Spice Briefs this year.? It involved two hunky men, one long, pitch-dark train tunnel and one very lucky woman.? But, again in the total lack of light, my heroine couldn’t be sure which man’s hands were where on her body and which man’s mouth was doing other wonderful things to her.
Other m?nage stories involved two men making love to the heroine, but neither were her eventual lover.? The guys were just doing their jobs, and doing them very well, indeed.? In Demons R Us, my heroine conjures a demon to get her ex-husband and his lover out of her house.? Instead of one demon two devilish men appear.? In payment, they don’t want her soul.? They want her body.? These guys even have wings, and one scene gives new meaning to “fly united.”? When they’ve done their work, though, they return to the underworld, and my heroine finds someone human who’s also devilishly handsome.
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Elfin Delights shares a similar theme.? This time, the two guys are elves who’ve been sent to the human realm to find the missing elf queen.? They put my heroine through several sexual tests, and when she passes with flying colors, she gets her reward in the form of the incredibly sexy elf king.? It’s kind of a reverse role Sleeping Beauty.
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Finally, I bit the bullet and decided to write a historical erotic romance where the hero made the conscious decision to share his woman.? I really, really wanted to be in an up-coming series of stories from Red Sage that told about the travels of a man named Trey across space and time, helping human couples find their happy endings.? I created Edward and Margaret Sinclair as the Victorian couple he’d join.? Edward and Margaret are deeply in love, but in that repressive time, neither of them was taught how to enjoy the marriage bed.? As a result, she’s shy, and he’s clumsy.? Not a good situation to create marital bliss.? Edward makes a huge sacrifice for his wife’s happiness – he allows a stranger named Treveylan to initiate Margaret into sexual pleasure.? And, he watches so he can learn how to satisfy his wife himself.? This story should be out later this year.
And then, one day, I just said, “Aw, what the hell?” and created a man from out of this world to join a married couple who haven’t been having much intimacy.? His name is It, and he comes from another world.? He’s green, and he can shapeshift into all sorts of human shapes.? He can even be part woman and part man and make both lovers happy at once.? The story is called Sexation.
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So, you see, the problem of m?nages leads to a lot of different permutations and combinations.? All of them creative and lots and lots of fun.? And all of that fun is for me.
For more on Alice Gaines Visit Her Website at: http://home.pacbell.net/halice/
Menage Week: Menages?or Twister with Emotion and Romance by Joey W. Hill
Sure, Twister is fun. But can you describe a game of Twister, play by play? Even more critically, can you infuse your description with emotional depth and searing sexual tension? If you answer yes, then you are officially qualified to write m?nages – a trios, quatre, cinq, etc. Chuckle.
While I’ve only written one book that was intended to have m?nage play throughout, m?nages have a way of creeping up on me and making hit and run appearances to elevate the action and emotional stakes between two main characters.
In Beloved Vampire (release date August 2009), my vampire hero, Lord Mason, has two third marked servants, a husband and wife, Enrique and Amara. He chose them that way so he could remain emotionally distant, but in one particular m?nage scene, he shows our heroine, Jessica, who has hidden to watch, the level of intimacy that can be shared in a way she’s only known through a brutal vampire master:
When the vampire settled back on the divan, Enrique slid his arm under Amara so they came up together in a supple movement. Amara began the shimmy and Enrique turned with her, moving in behind her body to adopt a similar movement, synchronizing the masculine and feminine forms of the dance, the spins coordinated as if they were inside one another’s mind. Perhaps, with their link to Mason, and their love for one another, they were. Amara twisted between the two men, rubbing up against her husband, then spinning to her knees to Mason for a caress and another mouthful of food. Back to the feet of her husband to press her lips in fervent adoration against his thigh, before coming back to her feet so she danced once more for Mason.
And then, later in the same scene…
She’d been shared by Raithe before. But this was different, Jess couldn’t deny it, no matter how she wanted to do so. Enrique bent, licked Amara’s nipples between the vampire’s fingers, then took Mason’s fingers into his mouth as well. Mason caressed the man’s nape with a free hand and then dropped it along his back. Enrique’s loose pants were slit on the side all the way to the hip, open to the creature to whom they were both bound. Mason’s hand slid into that side opening and tightened on one muscular cheek. As he did, Amara put her hands behind her back, tugged open the tie holding Mason’s tunic closed. Then she raised her arms, slid them around Mason’s neck to lift herself.
This scene intended to open Jessica’s mind further to the way a vampire could pleasure her, without causing her harm. While Amara and Enrique are loved by Mason, it is not the love he will of course eventually share with Jessica alone.
Even in the menage book I wrote (Holding the Cards) I didn’t intend for the relationship to be permanent between all three of them. Lauren was a damaged Mistress who falls hard for the brooding submissive Josh, and through the strategy of his closest friend Marcus (who is gay), a game of dominance and submission is launched between the three for one weekend on an island populated only by them. It was always intended that the happily ever after be between Josh and Lauren, with Marcus’s full blessing:
“A six of diamonds,” Lauren held it up for Marcus’s inspection.? “Josh,” she pulled another card from the deck, “has drawn a five of spades.”
Marcus studied her face a moment, then leaned forward and drew off the other side.? “A two of hearts.? The lady wins.”
“So what does that mean?” Lauren asked, feeling Josh turn toward her.
“The rules say you may ask anything of us, Lauren,” Marcus’s eyes met hers, steady, “and we will obey.”
As a Dom himself, Marcus obviously knew what words would cause the knees to go weak, a rush of liquid arousal between the thighs.? Lauren drew in a breath.
A part of her was tight like a clenched fist, remembering the past, and how those games had turned out.? Another part of her was curious, hoping for something.? Hoping that even a modicum of what Marcus said might be true, that maybe strangers could succeed in achieving intimacy, in the right environment, where lovers had failed.
Those familiar with my work know I don’t really deal in the world of “Don’t, stop, I’ve never done this before.” Not that my characters are overwhelmingly sexually experienced. It’s more that they’re open to the transforming and healing power of emotionally driven sexual expression. That expression may morph into a permanent relationship, or simply be a temporary meeting of minds and bodies for an intense, life changing experience.
For instance, in A Vampire’s Claim, my Australian bushman Dev is about as straight as a male can get, but this m?nage focuses on trust and surrender:
A pair of male hands had steadied him from behind when Daniela stopped the bucking of the chains. Now Dev stiffened as he realized they were not Thomas’s hands. Alistair’s capable, strong palms moved over the welts, digging in a little as his melodious voice offered a sensuous, low chuckle. “It hurts, but he likes it, too, Lady D. It’s almost fate, the way those that like the pain sometimes drop in our laps. I’m just sorry I didn’t find him first.”
*Don’t let him touch me. I don’t…I don’t have any interest in men.*
*I know you don’t.* Her voice purred in his mind. *But I want to see him touch you. It gives me pleasure. One handsome man caressing another. Will you surrender to my pleasure, let it become your own? Feel it, take it for yourself?
Again, this was one scene in a book that focused the intensity between two characters alone. However, I’m facing a unique situation now. Unless the muse changes her mind, I’m about to write my first official m?nage love story – where more than two characters will fall in love and have an HEA with one another. And that is the challenge, isn’t it? In our real lives, we know that coordinating a lasting relationship between two people is nothing short of a miracle. So exploring that between more than two is a challenge. Some of my readers have already met the main character of this next book, which will be part of the Vampire Queen series. His name is Gideon, a soul-scarred vampire hunter who appeared as Jacob’s brother in Mark of the Vampire Queen. In fact, there was a m?nage scene in that book, where Lyssa, Jacob’s vampire mistress, decides to share the brothers:
He couldn’t know what Gideon was thinking. Jacob wasn’t sure if that was a place he wanted to go anyhow. Something hard to define was pumping through his own blood. This was the woman he loved, that he considered his, even though he knew his possessiveness amused or irritated her by turns. Over the past few weeks, she’d offered his body to others. Commanded him to submit. Taught him that pleasure could be found in surrendering to her will. During those times, he’d found he needed her touch, her command as a compass to find that pleasure. So now the tables were turned. She intended to seduce his brother, perhaps only for the reasons she’d stated. But to immerse them all in the flood, she needed Jacob’s ability to arouse her. That admission, so simply offered with those words – *Come to me, Jacob. I need to feel your touch* – had him torn between an intense, emotional reaction to the revelation, and a close-to-the-edge, violent response at the thought she intended him to share her with another man. His own brother.
Initially, I intended for Gideon to have a sweet heroine in his own book. She’d be in trouble and in need, perfect for his high level testosterone, major-bad-boy-with-a-dark-hurting-side personality. But my muse turned her nose up at that idea. She thinks Gideon needs a firm hand, someone to break him down, and she doesn’t think it should be one person, but two. A male vampire, and his female servant, who just also happens to be a Mistress at her upscale BDSM club, though she submits to the vampire.? Sometimes I wonder if my muse plays that story game – you know, the kind where you throw ten different characters, plots and outcomes into a hat and choose them randomly? I think she does it just to screw with me, because I’m left holding those three pieces going, “You’ve got to be kidding!” But she’s usually right, and, sure enough, the idea is taking hold of my imagination in a firm grip.
To me, a love story is only limited by the characters themselves. Is an enduring, romantic love possible between more than two people? Sure. Love makes just about anything possible. But as I said, it would be challenging, and I expect it would take a tremendous amount of work. But, the good news is, when it’s the world of romance fiction, a happily-ever-after is guaranteed.
Joey W. Hill is author of twenty paranormal and contemporary erotic romances for Berkley Sensation, Berkley Heat and Ellora’s Cave. Her latest, A Vampire’s Claim, continues the national bestselling and award winning Vampire Queen series. Free excerpts and information on all her work can be found at www.storywitch.com