Adriana Kraft

When it's time to heat things up...

LGBT

Coaxing the Shy Sexy One… #MSS178 #MFRWAuthor

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Welcome to My Sexy Saturday Week 177, where authors tease you with seven sentences or paragraphs from their sexy stories!

This week’s theme is Shy Yet Sexy.

My first reaction to that theme was I don’t think we’ve ever written a shy lead character! So I scanned our book covers and smiled to myself when she popped out at me: Janet Baxter, from our F/F erotic romance, The Lady Wants More. BTW, we think our cover artist, Alessia Brio, did a great job capturing the contrast between this pair of sexy ladies.

We were invited to write this novella in 2011 for Torquere as part of Sapphic Signs, a twelve-month Zodiac series for lesbian fiction, and when our two year contract was up, we indie-pubbed it. Our choice of Zodiac signs? We selected our own birth signs, and Janet is me, Cancer to the core. We didn’t have far to reach for their relationship dynamics…

BLURB

Mix Cancer with Aquarius? Like oil and water – but when levelheaded Janet Baxter re-connects with free spirited Brenda Cassidy, the lady knows she wants more!

Janet Baxter keeps her post-divorce life neatly compartmentalized: Secure job, spacious Westchester County home, successful adult children, dependable community volunteer activities. Why is she drawn – for the first time ever – to attend her twenty-year college reunion in New York City?

Always a free spirit, Brenda Cassidy is comfortably bisexual and has no plans to ever settle down. But a fling? The reappearance of svelte, reserved Janet Baxter in Brenda’s life is nothing less than a gift, worthy of every enticement Brenda can conjure up. Can Brenda seduce Janet into an endless night of the lovemaking they enjoyed too briefly as college roommates? What if the lady wants more?

EXCERPT

SET UP At the reunion, Janet runs into Brenda, who’s just moved back from California to New York. They ditch the formal reunion proceedings and head to the campus bar where they used to hang out…

“Let’s dance,” Brenda said. “For old times’ sake. You used to be a good dancer.”

“I don’t know,” Janet said, half rising from her seat. Her protest caught in her throat. “I haven’t danced in years. Tom never wanted to.”

“Don’t you date? Get out of the house?”

Standing, Janet knew it was too late to avoid dancing. She closed her eyes. She loved dancing. She’d loved it ever since she was a little girl, when she’d started ballet lessons.

And she wasn’t a bad dancer. But as she grew taller and taller, fewer boys wanted to dance with her.

Her height had never posed a problem for Brenda. They’d often attracted stares and some catcalls, particularly when they slow-danced, but she’d never cared in those days. She just loved to dance, and people could have their own opinions. Of course that changed once Tom entered her life. He had never liked Brenda, and the feeling was mutual. Janet wanted Brenda to be her maid of honor. Tom insisted on his sister for that role, and she’d had to plead and plead to invite Brenda at all. Then Brenda wasn’t able to attend anyway.

Janet sighed and caved in to Brenda. With more than a little trepidation, she held Brenda’s hand and tried not to think about what the other Eagle patrons might be assuming as she and Brenda made their way across the dimly lit room.

Janet’s gaze dropped to the rise and fall of Brenda’s hips, which were covered in a chic skirt that stopped well short of the knee. Her former roomie still had a butt Janet would die for. How had Brenda maintained her figure all these years? Janet grinned. Maybe all the time Brenda spent dancing had something to do with that. Maybe she had a rigorous exercise routine. Janet shook her head. It was hard to imagine Brenda having any rigorous routine.

Sex. Maybe it was sex that helped Brenda stay in shape. Janet nearly giggled aloud. She’d had more than enough to drink. She glanced down again at Brenda’s ass, trying not to recall how she’d so thoroughly enjoyed cradling it in her arms. Her throat went dry. How could something so unacceptable feel so splendid? They hadn’t been together that many times, but she could remember every detail of their lovemaking—the seductive gestures, the words of endearment, the scents, the subtle noises, the feel of skin on skin.

Review: Five Stars: I loved these ladies! Building up the sexual tension between these two is the heart of this book. When they finally give in, I was right there with them. They are HOT!!!! Sheila G, Amazon

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Writing #GLBTQ Literature

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Welcome to the Rainbow Book Reviews Blog Hop! Be sure to click on the graphic to link to the rest of the participants. Lots of fabulous prizes – leave a comment to enter, for ours as well as all the grand prizes. We’re offering one free download, reader’s choice, from our published books.

What does writing GLBTQ literature mean to us? We’re a married couple writing erotic romance together under our pen name, Adriana Kraft. We’re also proud parents of a gay son, members of our local PFLAG chapter, and social activists who’ve supported causes we believe in across more decades than we necessarily want to count.

Nearly three and a half years ago, we stood with other supporters on the steps of our local county Courthouse on an April afternoon awaiting word on the Iowa Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision. We were prepared to stand for our values whichever way the decision went – and we were thrilled with the outcome (and blogged about it, HERE). I don’t think we can say it better than one of us told a reporter that afternoon: “Love is love, and every couple deserves a happy ending.”

So that’s one major reason we write what we write: to celebrate love wherever it can be found, and to share with the world our belief that all persons, whatever their sexual orientation, deserve equality under the law when they form a love relationship.

There’s more of course – we do write erotic romance, after all, and our tag line is Erotic Romance for Two, Three, or More. There are so many varieties and combinations under the rainbow banner. We’re especially partial to scenes and stories that feature two women together, whether lesbian or bisexual. Our short stories and novels explore what’s possible for women (well, and the occasional man) who can’t fit themselves neatly into the box labeled “straight.” Sometimes their foray into same sex relationships turns out to be a small part of coming into their own sexually, as in Mistress of Purgatory Point. More often, same sex erotic encounters become more central for them, and they find a range of solutions for ongoing expression of their entire spectrum of sexuality. We write a world where three- and even four-way committed relationships are not only possible but welcomed.

We hope you’ll leave us a comment on why GLBTQ literature matters to you, and what your favorite pairings are. We’ll pull a winner by random number Monday morning, August 27. Good luck!

Bisexual Invisibility

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Okay, now THIS is scary. I follow blogger Mike Szymanski at the Bisexuality Examiner. I can’t remember quite how I found him in the first place – probably through the BiWriters group I belong to on Yahoo. But if I’d gone looking for him on a Google search, without that personal connection, I might never have found him. Did you know that when you start to search the term “bisexual” or “bisexuality,” the Google auto-complete function is blocked? This vastly reduces the number of hits you’re likely to get – making it appear there’s almost nothing out there on your topic.

He’s referencing a Huffington Post article by Faith Cheltenham, who’s done some research on this issue. As she points out, how many bisexual persons just looking for validation and affirmation will never find what they’re seeking because Google has blocked the auto-complete for searching the term bisexual? She offers data, and has some links to give Google some feedback. If you care about this issue, hop on over there and help fight bi invisibility.

Sex Positivity

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Consent, Pleasure, Well Being. The term Sex Positivity has been around for a while and can mean many different things to different people.

Lately I’ve been following blogger and Sex Educator Charlie Glickman, and I like his definition best of all. The only criteria for evaluating any sex act, he says, are consent, pleasure, and well being.

Being sex positive doesn’t mean that we love sex, or have lots of it, or think everyone should practice free love. In fact, it means we don’t judge what anyone else wants to practice – gay, straight, kinky, vanilla, monogamous, polyamorous or celibate – beyond those three cardinal parameters:

Is it consensual? Are all the parties adult, are they aware and informed about what they’re doing, and have they agreed? Is it pleasurable for the parties involved? Does it contribute to the well being of all who are involved? I am reminded of the Wiccan rede, An it harm none.

What does this have to do with the erotic romance my husband and I write? Right now, we’re polishing off another entry in our Swinging Games series at Extasy Books. In that series a married baby boomer couple have expanded their sexual practice to become part of the swing lifestyle. Being sex positive means we don’t judge them or their practice, so long as they agree it’s consensual, pleasurable and contributes to their well being. And, of course, we hope that reading about what they’re up to is consensual, pleasurable, and contributes to readers’ well being!

Swinging Games: Too Close for Comfort is due out from Extasy Books early this summer. Books One through Eight are available now at Extasy Books.

Equality for our stories ~ and all LGBTQ persons

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I write erotic romance with my husband under the pen name Adriana Kraft. Most of the heroines we love to write and read are bisexual. In addition we’ve written some lesbian heroines and an occasional bisexual hero. So our pairings include M/F, F/F, and M/M, plus ménage, in a range of combinations.

Authors who write stories like ours have just been excluded from entering the “More than Magic” fiction contest based on those pairings – giving us a taste of the discrimination our characters so often struggle with.  The contest is an annual one sponsored by the Romance Writers Ink chapter of RWA (Romance Writers of America). In previous years, all romantic pairings have been eligible to enter, but this year, the entry guidelines state that the contest will “no longer accept same-sex entries in any category.”

We’ve been members of RWA for over a decade, and we’ve celebrated two victories with that organization across the years. The first was an attempt by some members to define romance as between “one man and one woman.” Thankfully that went down to defeat, and the organization’s official definition of romance focuses on the following two elements, period:

A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around two individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. A writer can include as many subplots as he/she wants as long as the love story is the main focus of the novel.

An Emotionally-Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love.

The second was the creation a few years ago of an on-line RWA chapter formed by authors of LGBTQ romances. We joined immediately.

Rainbow Romance Writers has been visible and active over the last two days spreading the word about this problem – and, once the first wave of anger settled out, chapter members and chapter leadership have been strong advocates of finding solutions to the problem.

It’s gone viral – several of our members blogged on Friday, Smart Bitches blogged about it yesterday, Suzanne Brockman has been posting on FaceBook, and it’s all over Twitter.

What can you do? Our chapter president, Heidi Cullinen, posted a blog today filled with things authors and readers can do to be part of the solution to the problem. If you care about LGBTQ romance and LGBTQ people, please take a look and get involved.

Sex – and Everything Else

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Did I get your attention?

I’m an author of erotic romance, so naturally I like sex: reading about it, writing about it, watching it (there was some great discussion this past week on adult films for women at The Examiner) and of course having some for myself.

But November was a strange month and it’s made me sit back and re-focus on what I stand for.

Sexual Freedom, for starters: the freedom to read, write, watch and engage in hot sexy activity – with the partner of my choice, without any government intrusion into my bedroom or wherever else I choose to be sexy.

Equal Rights and equal protection under the law for all of us. That means I support marriage equality, the repeal of DADT, strong anti-bullying legislation for all our schools, and the Trevor Project and It Gets Better. And NOH8. Most of our books focus on LGBT characters, especially bisexual heroines. I want both the real world and the fictional world to be safe for them.

Great Sex – goes without saying. Tips, toys, information, resources, anything out there that increases sexual enjoyment, especially in romantic relationships, of whatever genders and combinations.

Health. The man I’m married to – half of the pen name Adriana Kraft – is a cardiac patient. Probably that’s a major reason we write erotic romance together. We live our lives by the “if not now, when” mantra because there’s no telling what’s promised. We also devote countless hours each week to staying healthy – by how we eat, how much we exercise, how we practice stress reduction and how we enjoy our time off. 

Some of these things are political and some are more individual, but for me they’re all intensely personal and hard to separate. I went off line for the last ten days leading up to November’s elections to work for local candidates who share my values. On November 2nd, my causes took a huge hit both here in Iowa and across the nation, even though both my candidates won.

So the last item on today’s “what I stand for” list is Happy Endings. Our characters deserve them and so do we. We’ll keep writing them in our fiction and working for them in our real life – to #MakeItBetter for all of us.