Friday, October 30, 2015

Freebie Fiction Friday - Putting the TG in TGIF!

Well, if it's Friday, then that must been it's time for Freebie Fiction Friday . . . time to put the 'TG' in TGIF (and the 'FD' in Friday)!

Every Friday I take the initiative to search through thew newly free titles on Amazon, and to identify those that might be of interest to trans* readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don't have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon's free reading applications, and covert it (if need be) with Calibre. I can tell you I do most of my reading on my iPad, using Kindle for iPad, and it works beautifully.

Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, though, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Esther Harshom talks Femdom and Sissy Play for #Cocktoberfest

When it came to writing sissy erotica, I arrived kind of late in the game: I’d already published about fifty or so stories, most of them Femdom-themed, before it even occurred to me that I could turn my pen towards crossdressing. And why would it? After all, it wasn’t a fetish I got any particular enjoyment out of at the time. For a start, I’m a woman, and kind of a tomboy at that: where your average sissy might look at a pair of stockings and think of the sensuous feel of the silk against their legs, I view them as a ladder waiting to happen; when they see an overflowing makeup bag  and all the transformative possibilities therein, I can’t help but think of just how bad I am at being anything even approaching traditionally ‘girly’. Sissification stories, with their focus on hyper-femininity, didn’t seem like a particularly good fit for me.

Still, I was a professional, and it seemed like it might be an interesting genre to get into. If anyone could do it, so could I.

It took me three months to finish my first short story. To put it bluntly, this little experiment was a disaster. I could write Maledom books, Femdom books and vanilla with ease. I could write romance or hardcore, with main characters who were everything from werewolves to virgins. What I couldn’t do, it seemed, was write a sissy story that I’d want to read – and that fact bothered the hell out of me.

The problem, I realised eventually, was that I thought being a sissy in a BDSM relationship was all about the humiliation of being dressed in something ‘demeaning’ – that is, being made ‘less’ by being a woman. Every time I tried to get around that fact, I couldn’t do it. It seemed almost offensive to think that my gender was being used as a way of degrading people, just so they could get their rocks off. It took me a long time to realise that in good sissification and feminisation books – at least, the kind of books I was interested in – that wasn’t the case at all.

For me, sissification isn’t about the clothes you wear or how pretty your make up is. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a frilly dress or a latex catsuit, a slinky little evening number or the kind of thing that would make a five-dollar hooker blush. The truth is, the sissy stories I write aren’t about the sissy at all. What’s important, at least to me, is the relationship between the sissy and the person for whom they dress up.

To be a sissy, at least in the books I write, is to give someone complete control over you. It’s a way of saying I trust you enough to let you strip me down to nothing, and rebuild me as you see fit – even if that means taking me from a strong alpha-male sort right the way to being a desperate, slutty little girl. The willingness to submit to that kind of transformation – or perhaps the initial unwillingness, which gradually gets broken down by the realisation that this new life is what he was made for – is what really makes a main character pop for me.

And what about the Dominant – the man or woman who is given this opportunity to make something beautiful and sordid right from scratch? Well, he or she has a huge part to play too. It’s their job to guide the action and transform the clay of their new submissive into someone – something – worthy of their time and attention.

When you look at it that way, it’s easy to see that a lot of fictional BDSM relationships follow the same relationships – no matter how you dress it up.


♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Esther Harshom traded in a life in academia for a mountain of erotica and couldn’t be happier. She lives in the UK with her partner, and her annual #Cocktoberfest sale is taking place right now. For more information, you can follow her on Twitter: @EstherHarshom. If you’re looking for a taste of her work, Part One of The Office Sissy is available for free on Amazon now.

Mistress Stephanie's Strays by Jim Lyon

As much as we may grieve the loss of a loved one, I think we all dream of being left with a life-changing inheritance. For one young woman, that inheritance only begins with a sprawling Hawaiian mansion – it is the stable of servants who come with it, desiring only to please, which is truly life-changing. Despite her prior experience with the scene, Stephanie does adjust a little too quickly to her “readymade polyamorous D/s family,” but that is all part of the fantasy.

As we soon discover, Mistress Stephanie's Strays are there solely for their Mistress’s pleasure, taking their only pleasure in the act of submission. Male, female, or trans, their bodies have been rendered hairless through laser treatment, their chastity is ensured by piercings, and they all sport rather elaborate butt plugs. I took an immediate liking to Molly and her faux foxtail butt plug; was excited by Pete’s fondness for being pegged; and found myself intrigued by gentle Louise’s love of pain; but it was neutered sissy Toni who excited me the most.

To Jim Lyon’s credit, he smartly (and quickly) deals with issues of boredom and contentment. When Mistress Stephanie begins to feel somewhat suffocated by the intimacy of the world he Aunt created, she sets out to open the estate and their lives to the wider BDSM world. First, though, she finds herself a submissive lover in Jewel who can also help domme her inherited subs, whom she makes her own through the offering of some very personal theme gifts.

If I were to have one small complaint about the book it is that it sometimes moves to fast, skimming through scenes that I would have liked to see explored deeper. It is a lovely read as it is, but I would love to see an expanded edition that pads out the erotica to something more novel-length. Like I said, though, small complaint . . . and wanting more from an author is never a bad thing!


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Slave Life: Part I – Training by Alyssa Von Synn

One of the most effective narrative techniques in erotic fiction is to open up with the good stuff, to show us the end-result of a slave’s training, and then to take the reader back to the beginning of the journey. Rather than ruin the surprise, it provides a sort of promise that all of our wildest fantasies will be realized.

With Slave Life: Part I, Alyssa Von Synn puts that technique to good use. She moves the story backwards and forwards in time, contrasting the fall of an ordinary man who robs banks for a living, with the rise of a transsexual slave who services men for a living. Part of what makes it most effective is the way she uses a first-person narrator to drive home that contrast, with Nico referring to himself as one of the girls. In fact, for at least the first few chapters, we are left wondering just how much of a girl he has really become.

The opening chapter on blowjob training is a fantastic opening, and the story has some definite highlights in the first half, but it is the eighth chapter where the story gets really interesting. It is there that the District Attorney brings up The Project – an attempt to “re-educate non-violent felons and cut down on illegal sex trafficking.” We already know that Nico is a part of it, of course, but it is always exciting to learn how (and why) such a man becomes trapped in such a life. Once we fully understand the situation, the last few chapters take on a whole different feel.

With her first story, Alyssa Von Synn already proves herself to be an accomplished storyteller. She has a perfect sort of narrative flair, knows how to establish a character, and can really make a sex scene work. The final seven words are, perhaps, the most intriguing in the whole story, and I cannot wait to see what Part 2 brings.
 


Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Made Maidenly: Halloween French Maid Sissy by Claire Bear & Courtney Captisa

When it comes walking that fine line between suggestively risque and erotically explicit, there are few authors with a stronger grasp on the story than Claire Bear and Courtney Captisa. While they lean a bit more towards the erotic side with Made Maidenly: Halloween French Maid Sissy, making it one of their most daring tales to date, they still stop just shy of revealing all.

There is a very good reason that Halloween is the official crossdresser holiday, loved as much by those who crave that one day of social acceptance as it is by those who desire to take advantage of that craving. There is a little bit of both here, with Ross reluctantly allowing his neighbor to feminize him, and with Abby . . . well, taking a little more delight in his humiliation than might be expected. The scenes of feminization are well done (as always), especially with Ross being forced to publicly model some of the sluttier costumes available.

It is at Zara's party, however, where Claire & Courtney really get a chance to show their stuff. There's some nice exhibitionism here, even more humiliation, and a friendship that hides the eventual threat of exposure. The story does take a twist in the latter half, going to a darker place than to which fans might be accustomed, but I loved the way all the themes came together.

Depending on who you are, Made Maidenly can be a nightmare or a dream come true, but regardless it is a fun story that is perfect for the season.


Monday, October 26, 2015

Trick and Treat 3: The Student Witch by Lyka Bloom

Good news for those of you who haven’t read the first two Trick and Treat stories – neither have I, and that did not lessen my enjoyment here one bit!

As concepts go, it is a simple one, but that simplicity is what makes it so wide-open for subsequent annual instalments. Here we have a dilapidated old mansion, long rumored to be haunted, and thought to be home to the mysterious Dorothea Wyrmwood. Despite the Halloween curse that has seen disappearances over the past two years, it is still the kind place teenagers like to explore on a foolish dare.

This year, it is four friends who decide to go search for adventure, but only one of them will really find what she is looking for. Lyka Bloom does a lovely job of establishing her characters and foreshadowing their fates, ensuring that we are more than just casual observers to what happens inside. We know these characters, and we sympathise/empathise with them, and that makes our sinister titillation at their transformations even sweeter.

Trick and Treat 3: The Student Witch is a fun story, full of magic and mystery, with a fantastic attention to detail. The mansion undergoes as many transformations as the four intruders, and the way Bloom brings Dorothea’s fantasies to life is quite delightful.


Sunday, October 25, 2015

The Office Sissy: The Complete Collection by Esther Harshom

The Office Sissy is an interesting change of pace, in that there is no 'before' portion to the humiliation. We never get to see Barbie as a boy, never get to relive her breaking, and never get to witness her descent into bimbo servitude. Instead, Esther Harshom walks us though a day in Barbie's new life, letting us get a feel for what the realization of a forced feminization fantasy is like. There are some hints and revelations along the way that allow the reader to at least imagine what came before, but for Barbie there is no before. It is just too hard for a bimbo slut to think about.

Actually, since Barbie is already The Office Sissy when the story starts, there is no forced feminization to be enjoyed. We do, however, get to experience first-hand what it is like to be a cosmetically augmented sissy slave, brain washed into bimbo servitude, who craves the humiliation of her boss. This is a story that is heavy on the humiliation, including one scene that was just a bit too much for me. Human ashtrays aside, however, I liked the power dynamic here and the mental conditioning of Barbie.

The story comes full circle in the final chapter, when we finally understand who Barbie is - or was - and how she really feels about her life. There are more than a few surprises, a little sex, and a lot of cum along the way, making for a perfect story arc across the three chapters.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Freebie Fiction Friday - Putting the TG in TGIF!

Well, if it's Friday, then that must been it's time for Freebie Fiction Friday . . . time to put the 'TG' in TGIF (and the 'FD' in Friday)!

Every Friday I take the initiative to search through thew newly free titles on Amazon, and to identify those that might be of interest to trans* readers, fans, and lovers. Even if you don't have a Kindle, you can still download the titles through one of Amazon's free reading applications, and covert it (if need be) with Calibre. I can tell you I do most of my reading on my iPad, using Kindle for iPad, and it works beautifully.

Please do be sure to check the price before downloading anything, though, as most freebies are limited time offers, and some are specific to certain regions.