An Interview with William Dean for the Erotica Readers & Writers Association (originally appeared in The Smutters Lounge 8/01/02)

A lot of writers say they base their stories on people they know or observe in real life. How much of what you see around you generally goes into your fiction?

I have borrowed traits and tales from my closest friends and from the most distant of strangers. But I really try to alter them beyond recognition. Perhaps, twist would be a better verb. And hard.

Some of that is fear of a litigious planet. But mainly it is because I can't write "real life" to save my own real life. No matter how I try I can't craft that poignant prose that is the equivalent of a breathtaking Vermeer painting. The quiet terrors of everyday life subtly lit with well-hewn prose. No, because of who I am and the talents and skills I possess there is always going to be much irreverence in my work with tongue inserted in all manner of cheek.

Now I may not have been born to mock, but I was made by the intervening years--ah, the many travails of fat, fey bookworm growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma--to want to seek revenge by tweaking a nose or tit or two in print. Yes, satire is the scorned nerd's best weapon. And I think there is no better place for satire than porn. No better time to strike than when you have 'em by the gonads. It's the Death Star of this Dork Lord.

That paragraph alone proves why verisimilitude escapes me. Most people sadly don't speak or think in what I like to call "Baroque A-Go-Go."

That said, this doesn't mean I don't incorporate realistic details into my writing. I'm obsessive about that. I carry a notepad with me at all times and have jotted down dialogue overheard on the bus or my walk home. And when it comes to the great rite itself, I ask friends who have experience with wielding a bullwhip or doing scatplay for just the right detail to drop that will make the reader think I've done it. Actually, that's what's funniest to me about See Dick Deconstruct: how little sexual experience of my own I used in those stories. I did incorporate a bit from a bad date or two. But almost all the sex is either channeled or stolen from other realms and others' lives.

As for my next collection, Satyriasis: Literotica2 (Suspect Thoughts Press, Fall 2003), I do have, at long last, tales to tell of great sex that I've actually had. Yet, except for one story I will print, I find them too intimate to use. Ah, yes. How ironic. The modest pornographer. So I will keep on relying on my old faithful--stories conceived in my imagination and heightened by realistic details "borrowed" from the adventures of my most sex piggish friends.

I think most readers and other writers are curious about the selection an author goes through when assembling an anthology. How do you pick what you think will fit the overall theme of the book?

Being an imp of the perverse, when I came out in college--and this Quaker college smack-dab in the middle of the Midwest was quite the haven for imps of the perverse--I came out as a cultural lesbian feminist. No lie. Sing a little Meg Christian or quote a little Audre Lorde and I'm twenty-one once more.

And though I no longer follow the '80s cultural lesbian feminist party line on pornography or SM or transgenderism, to name a few, I still feel a twinge of guilt if my own writing is as lily white as me. Yes, sisters and brothers, it ain't perverse till it's diverse. Well, that's my maxim nowadays.

And so I really pushed myself to write characters and scenarios that were very different from me. Or, more accurately, I channeled parts of myself into characters who lived in realities quite different from mine. That was certainly the case with Ruth Faust, the Jewish/Sicilian witch, in "The Devil and Mrs. Faust" and Dr. Marcus George, the African-American leatherdaddy with a weakness for preppy clothes and punk boys, in "The Color Khaki".

Every now and then I'd take a bit of my own life and spin a tale from it. I did have a wild crush on a tranny fag once upon a time that I explored in "Walt". I did answer a personal that was similar to the one that brings the narrator of "See Dick Deconstruct" and Queer White Dork together. In real life, I botched that date badly. I wasn't very in my body back then and I've never mastered the icy coolness requisite for sexcessful dating with San Francisco boys. (I "imported" my partner and future publisher, Greg Wharton of Suspect Thoughts Press, from Chicago.) So, I re-imagined it as how I wish I had behaved.

Then I'd look at the stories I'd written so far and ask what's missing. Oh, wait, I don't have a story with this or that. And this little bit of guilt grit would be the center around which I'd secrete a story idea and layers and layers of writing and re-writing until I had my "pearl". (I just used this "technique" to come up with the premise for a scat story that I hope will make it into Satyriasis.)

Slowly, this is how I built up the collection that became See Dick Deconstruct.

Now, to be totally honest, it didn't go as smoothly as all that. There was a lot more handwringing as I attempted to write the stories most unlike me. At first, I felt so incorrect writing these stories. How obscene for a white man to be writing as a person of color or a big fag to be writing as a straight woman gone bi. And on and on. Fortunately, I live in San Francisco, the epicenter of bending gender and other identities, and many of my favorite San Franciscans are writers who've written in all manner of voices, especially my best friend Patrick Califia. All the better, they said sweetly, "Get over yourself, Mary. Writers write." When I awoke from my fainting couch, I realized I could choose to write about myself or others. In either case, I'd be telling colorful lies with even more colorful words. And so, I then began to agonize over something worthy of a writer: am I being as true to the character's voice and reality as possible?

So now, as I gather together the stories for Satyriasis, I'm even more hellbent on including everyone under the rainbow--or offending everyone under the rainbow. And this is why I'm writing more het stories. I've never had het sex myself so that's a nice challenge as a writer.

But there's more missionary zeal behind this choice as well. I'm all born-again about the leavening powers in society of The Divine Freak or The Queer. The dominant society will never rise beyond bland powder without The Other. In truth, this otherness is in all of us. How else could it be projected hither and thither so well? But some really do embody it to beat the band. And these are my people. Clan Queer. The truly askew in heart and soul. The ones with amazing peripheral vision. Now, many gays and lesbians and bis and trannys don't cotton to the notion of queer one bit. They're as normal as they believe normal is. While many hets are as queer as they come even when they only come in the missionary position. For me, queerness is not about the sex acts you perform and with whom you choose to contort and sweat and groan. It's about how you feel about the sex you're having and how you feel about the wonderful powers and pleasures of sex in such a sex-phobic world. And the way that seeing sex just so colors your perceptions of the rest of the world. (Look for me soon draped in a rainbow flag and banging a tambourine in a mall near you.)

So, in short (if ever I could be in a prose as I am in person), I am trying with each story and each collection to be more and more of the queer writer I claim to be and to tell the queerest stories I can.

Anthologies are usually made up of several writers' works with an overall editor. How did you approach publishers with the idea of a collection of just your own stories and what was the general reaction?

I have had a very unusual quest for a publisher because in the end it turned out to be such a happy one.

In the beginning, I did what you're never supposed to do as a new writer: I believed no one would want to publish a full collection of my work. Now, I done many a soft-shoe of false modesty in my time. But at that moment, I honestly believed (and still do on some bad days) that my writing wasn't hot enough. It was too queer or not queer enough. Or it was too precious, too pretentious, too spurned academic.

So I wasn't surprised when I submitted to one publisher and they said, after six-plus months of nearly patient waiting for a reply, that it was too brainy for their readers. The second publisher I sent the manuscript didn't reply after six months and I finally screwed up the courage to ask what was happening and I found they'd lost the manuscript. Quickly after that, they recovered it and promptly rejected it because they said that short story collections by unknowns don't sell. Fortunately this has not been my case though I'm willing to agree with them that most likely this is true. But what pissed me off about their rejection was that they said when you get a novel or TWO published come back and try your luck. Well, obviously since getting a collection done was going so well, getting two novels published would be a breeze. In fact, one of the reasons I pursued writing erotica--besides thawing out my sexual organs below and above the belt--was because I felt that a collection of erotica, especially as I watched the Best of You-Name-It Erotica explosion going on around me, would be more likely to get into print than a bizarre first novel by a total unknown.

Now before you call out "Philips Pity Party, Table for One," I know two rejections is child's play in the annals of writing. Actually, it's child's play even for a single-cell organism. But I had at that time (more now) a lot of friends who were published writers and oh, the publishing horror stories I will be taking to my grave! Plus I had just received some doozies of a rejection letter for my poetry. Blessed is the writer who has not felt the sting of a poetry editor, especially the homophobic one. On top of that, back in San Francisco's sexcandy store, I was going through one bad date after another. Again, child's play for anything or one that goes bump in the night or day. But I felt that if I wanted rejection after rejection before ending up in bed with a crazed partner, I'd stick to dating men. I could handle the rejection of my body better than my body of work.

Fortunately, I have a dyke boss--pity the fool who calls her a lesbian--at my day job where I edit LGBT travel guides who acts like the head of the Casa Muffstra crime empire. Yes, she's Gina Gatta, the Dyke Don of Damron Company. And it just happened that she and the second publisher shared a distributor and so she took it as a personal affront when they rejected me. (Think like a don and all will make sense.) After she heard the news, she turned to me and asked what did I need. A book in print, I answered. Fine, she replied. And so, AttaGirl Press was born.

Thank the goddesses for dyke dons!

As I said at the beginning of this answer, I was very lucky. I worked for a publisher that could and would print my book. And I had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of having near total control over the entire project. Yes, I got worn down running up and over that learning curve. Yes, I'm so ready to walk away from the eternal vigilance required for promotions. But I did get to make sure that all the stories appeared just the way I wanted them to.

So if all the publishers in the world say no, please don't give up like I was willing to do after two, count 'em two, rejections. Explore the idea of self-publishing. Even if that means just reading Dan Poynter's The Self Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book. Or consider print-on-demand publishers.

It may not be as glamorous as being published by Olympia or Grove but it gets your wicked child out in the world.

And guess what, sometimes collections by unknowns do sell. They even win awards.

We see a great deal of niche-type publishing these days, and separation of GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered) into "stroke fiction" with lots of graphic sex vs. romances that spin out the inner emotional monologues between lovers. But your stories defy categorization that way. How important do you think it is to "color outside the lines" to achieve such success with ground-breaking fiction?

I wish Marketing were Marketing and Writing were Writing and never the twain shall meet. But that ain't so. And it shows up with the split you're talking about. Marketing tells us that boys want visual delights that lead to rapid stroking and girls want romance that lead to sighing and commitment ceremonies. Of course, this is ridiculous. Like life, desire is so complex it appears simple.

Be true to the nature of desire--your own and your characters--and you will get the wildest and most lineleapingest colors--in other words, the most romantic stroke story ever told.

One of the admonitions of teachers and critics is that to "learn" how to write well, a writer must have discipline. In other words, to write better and better, writers must simply sit down and keep writing until they get it right for themselves. How important is that kind of discipline to you? Do you revise a lot or, when you've got it "right" in your mind, do you just sit down and crank it out, so to speak?

I wish I could crank 'em out. If I could do that, then I wouldn't waste so much time avoiding actually writing because of my dread for how long the process takes me. Patrick Califia has said that my writing is lapidary. And I love that compliment. One because I have a not-so-secret love for beautiful big words like this--which Patrick knows full well being my primary reader. But also because I like how the word conjures up the image of working with stones, of polishing them, of cutting them, of arranging them even in a pattern. That is very much how I write.

I may start with a vague story outline, but in the end it's a process of taking various paragraphs that I write with the heat moves me and stringing them together and then polishing them with many edits and rewrites. I don't approach the golden mean of writing every day until mid-stream in the story. I wish this weren't the case because I do feel there is a lot of truth in that saw which many a writer uses mostly to hack themselves from limb from limb and which goes: writing is like a muscle; the more you use it the stronger it becomes. Of course, with muscles you're supposed to rest between workouts to let all that lactic acid do its mojo on making your body the hardest in town. But most of us are lucky to make it to the gym or the computer a few times a week or just on the weekends because of day jobs and the daily job of living. Even my friends who live off their writing have to hustle constantly with getting articles and essays out so they can return to writing fiction in the off days, the off hours. In fact, right now a writer friend has been photocopying and mailing out to all of us an interview with Peter Cameron in July/August 2002 Poets & Writers where he offers up this balm in Gilead to authors everywhere: he's written when he had a full-time job, several part-time jobs, and when writing alone was his full-time job and he noticed no real difference in the quality of his work. Which to me means first that I'm not a bad person for not writing every day no matter how fervently I believe I "should" to be a "good" writer and second that the quality of writing comes from being present when you write whenever and wherever that may be.

That said, I do believe that truly good writing is made in the process of rewriting. This is when I most feel that I am a writer--when I review and revise. I will spend much of my writing time doing this. Then let it sit and rest for a while if I can. Maybe a week or a month. Then I come back and look it over, work it over, once more. During this time I share it with my primary readers for comments and criticisms. I mull over what they've said and finally trust myself to say it's done and let it go out into the world.

Now all this may seem like a lot of fuss for erotica but I disagree. I think the bastard or suspect genres of literature (erotica, SF, fantasy, horror, experimental prose, etc.) are where the most dazzling techniques are being used and where the most amazing stories are being told.

Yes, yes, yes--there are tons of dross in them thar hills. But when you strike gold, it's a thick, long vein of 24 carat.

In some cases today, we see a strong "Us and Them" division among publishers, in which, say, only the works of lesbian authors or only gay authors will be accepted as submissions. Do you think that's a good thing or does it limit the potential of receiving good fiction from everyone, no matter what their personal sexual lifestyle is?

Because of the way publishing and bookselling have been transformed in the last 20 years I think these independent presses are all the more important. Don't get me wrong; I thank old horny Pan for the great pansexual presses out there like Black Books, Suspect Thoughts Press, or Down There Press. Hell, I'm even shacked up with one of their publishers. But many of the larger presses that took on loads of gay and a few lesbian writers in the '80s and '90s have closed down the imprints that published these authors and thus cut them loose.

Cursèd are the mid-list for they shall see the bestsellers inherit the earth.

Even the august New York Times ran an article on the death of the LGBT bookstore because of the claim (among other specious but depressing reasons like Johnny Queerchild won't read) that these titles can be found at any chain. What a shitty cause for celebration that is. Yes, some LGBT titles can be found at a chain bookstore and ain't that great for the assimilation of those queers who want a place at table with all the "normal" folks. But I'm a flaming Sodomite and have never been able to find my book in a single McNobleBorders. Or, as a representative of AttaGirl Press, been able to get our books purchased by the buyers. (And I'm sure this is the case for many publishers of pansexual and heterosexual erotica too.) Too controversial? Too small fry of a publisher? After all, the golden rule in bottom-dollar publishing is: If you aren't a name, you're out of the game. (Sadly, this toxic notion has washed from the mainstream far down into the tributaries of the small press even.)

Honestly, I don't know.

However, I have seen titles of publishers with these exclusionary policies on McNobleBorders shelves. And even if it isn't my title, I'm glad to see some LGBT books out on those one or two shelves and giving a space for voices that the more "respectable" publishing houses in New York have passed over because the numbers just don't justify the time and effort.

So until someone expunges the writing from the wall saying there's no need to publish LGBT authors or provide a wide array of their titles on the shelf, I think those LGBT publishers and the books they create are necessary. And not a necessary evil. Not at all.

Long may they print!

And here's to many more pansexual presses too.

In fact, every night I light an MBA on fire and say a prayer for the independent press and the independent bookseller.

Goddess bless them, each and every one.

In interviewing other writers, we often hear the "horror stories" of difficulties in marketing and promoting books, the grueling pace of appearances, signings, and readings, and, of course, dealing with tons of correspondence and emails from fans. How has it been for you with See Dick Deconstruct? Were there times when you just wanted to "get back to writing?"

You wouldn't know it from how I carry on here but I'm an honest-to-goddess introvert. I mask it well in print and, on a good day, in person. But I am. And so promotion--which in the case of the author must be self-promotion--has often felt like being a narcissist on a coke binge.

"Gather 'round, everyone, and listen to me because I've got a story to sell. I take Visa, Mastercard. Come on down to my URL and sign up on my email list. Care for a T-shirt? It's free when you buy 2 books."

Okay. I'm slightly exaggerating. Slightly. I've been lucky to have been taken under the wings of some master promoters like the indomitable Kirk Read, author How I Learned to Snap and a damned fine writer of erotica for anyone who's got a copy of Best Gay Erotica 1999. They've helped me ride the learning curve and the shame waves that accompany whatever self-promotion I've deemed shameless that day.

So, the horrors of promotion have been there for me but minimal. Even despite that fact that I am more or less my publisher. But being shy at heart, I'm prone to see the myriad acts of promotion as horrors. For an extrovert with time to hit the road and friends in towns from coast to coast it can be a very grueling but rewarding experience.

The only surprise that awaits most writers--and readers too--is how few bookstores do readings nowadays. And that goes double for publishers and their book tours. My former roommate just graduated from Columbia with a MFA and got a book published by a major publisher. Sounds like prime road show material. Nope. His professors and the publisher's publicity department have both told him not to bother touring. Nobody comes, they say. I don't believe this is always the case--certainly not if you're tireless in your ability to network, flyer, hit up the media before an event. But it is true that this is now the accepted wisdom.

One way to prevent a single digit turnout is to read with other authors. Another option, especially if this is your first time to tour, would be to spend the money you would on touring--and you will spend money to tour even to a few towns--on making a web site to sell your book and you. That way you can also concentrate your efforts on reading in the bookstores in your city and the others nearby.

And for my fellow souls to whom this all sounds like the introvert's version of hell might I suggest you do your reading--even if it's only one--in the manner of JT Leroy. Now in San Francisco, he's legendary for his coveted ability to write a novel like Sarah and to be spoken of by all and seen by none. At his readings, other famous writers, like Susie Bright, show up and read for him. He's not even in the audience or so the legends tell. Now this kind of reading isn't as easy for a new author to pull off without the buzz and abilities of JT. But you can probably get away with the modified JT I used for my very first solo reading. What I did was to have a friend read a piece and then I would read one and then another friend and then me again and so on. I was still afraid, but I was also amazed to hear my stories being read to me. And once I'd done one "solo" reading I was a little less terrified to truly solo the next time.

And yes, Sweet Brother William, there were a hundred times this Hobbit longed to go back to the hole. In fact, after this interview, I'm holeward bound.

What suggestions do you have for beginning writers to "learn the craft" of good erotic fiction? Should they read a lot? Just write, write, write? Take classes?

My short answer: read and fuck.

A lot.

And even if you aren't fucking a lot (I certainly hadn't until after my first book of erotica was printed), you can certainly read a lot.

Goddess knows there's no dearth of erotica collections nowadays.

And anthologies like Susie Bright's Best American Erotica or Maxim Jakubowski's Mammoth series and any of the Best Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender series or online journals like Clean Sheets or Suspect Thoughts or Mind Caviar or Blue Food or Velvet Mafia and, of course, Erotica Readers & Writers Association are all excellent places to start down the I Am Curious Yellow Brick Road. Read what editors are choosing. Not to emulate so much as know the boundaries. Then run wild in your own way within those boundaries or leap them altogether.

I'd also recommend that you read some of the classics. Pat Califia's Macho Sluts changed the way I imagined erotica can be written. But perhaps that revelation will come to you from reading Pauline Réage or de Sade or Bataille or John Preston or Anne Rice or Anaïs Nin or Henry Miller to name but a few.

Now as for books about writing erotica, I know they are out there. I've only read bits of Lars Eighner's Elements of Arousal: How to Write and Sell Gay Men's Erotica which besides having a lot of no-nonsense advice about grammar and manuscript submission had a host of story rules that I realized I was constantly breaking. Susie Bright has her very popular How to Write a Dirty Story: Reading, Writing & Publishing Erotica. And I hear that Patrick Califia is considering creating a book/workbook which I would snatch up in a second if and when it is printed. (Please, Patrick. Pretty please!)

And as for classes, there is no guarantee that those who can write can teach. It's a sad truth much like the ditty that sex radicals are not often enough radicals who have sex. But I digress. I'm not sure writing can be taught in a classroom. Trained perhaps. Thwarted all too easily. And yet I've gotten a lot from more general books about the craft written by writers who were also teachers. So I would recommend that you keep your ear to the ground/Internet and listen to the dirt about those writers who do offer classes. If you really like the author's works and the word on the blackboard is good, then go for it. Or take your chances. If the red ink starts to flow faster than blood in a slasher flick or the group critiques of your pieces remind you of a scene from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, then I would flee. But even at it's most mediocre, these classes (and this is true of writers conferences too) can be great ways to learn who's who in publishing and perhaps even find a new writing ally.

And a good writing ally is invaluable.

Perhaps they might even be fun to read with in bed.

Which comes in quite handy while you read and fuck.

What are you working on now? Do you have editors pressuring you for new material, especially given the success of See Dick Deconstruct in winning the recent LAMBDA Award?

I'm supposed to be working a slew of stories for several anthologies which I will gather up afterwards to put into my second collection, Satyriasis. The most pressing story is the one I want to have finished in two weeks so I can read it at Charles Anders' Writers With Drinks--a fabulous event he's created here in San Francisco where he gets authors of all genres and genders together to read at a local bar. In my erotica readers and writers' heaven on earth, every town would have one of these events and one Charles Anders.

Okay, that and Perverts Put Out (PPO) which Bill Brent of Black Books puts on every few months. If you are an erotica writer and you wanna feel the love of appreciative readers, I recommend coming to San Francisco and reading at PPO. You will be ready to go back home and write more. What Bill Brent hasn't done to spread the love and literary filth about! Thank him (thank any of the authors whose names I've dropped like bread crumbs throughout this rambling oration) by buying one of his (their) books today.

Sorry, William, back to your question. I am getting a lot of requests for submissions to anthologies. The award has definitely helped with that. But it still can't save me from getting rejected. It happened just the other day with one of my favorite new stories.

After this next batch of anthology deadlines, I think I'll sit out for a round or two. It's very easy to get caught up in the frenzy of writing and submitting to these. Not that this process is a bad thing, but it can get a little addictive always chasing the high of getting accepted. Well, it has for me.

With that in mind, I also would encourage any author who is getting ready to publish their first collection or erotic novel to have enough material for not one but two books. Because once the hoopla of promotion commences you won't have as much time to write unless you have another book waiting in the wings to send off. Otherwise, it always feels like you're running behind because once the first book comes out readers and editors will--if all goes well--be claming for The Son of Sequel.

Writers often say that "writing is a lonely business." How important do you think good support from other writers, editors, readers, friends, and family is to a writer?

As important has having a means of clicking the keys or dragging a pen across paper. Honest.

Now I hit the mother lode when Patrick Califia and I became friends after meeting at a queer pagan gathering. I knew of his work but hadn't read much of it then. And I certainly didn't consider myself a writer for years after that. But in those years I did read much of his work. When I finally started to write, he read and encouraged mine. Now we act as a writers group of two for each other. Without this, I would be lost because I still have big moments of doubt. I alternate between thinking all my writing is not wild enough or utterly cliché. Patrick's clarity of mind and encouragement have proven priceless for rescuing many of my stories for the dreaded maw of the paper shredder.

Of course, you may be rolling your eyes now and muttering, "That's all well and good for little Mary Namedropper. What about me in Olathe, Kansas?!"

Even in Olathe, there are still fellow writers you can meet and bond with. Even if it's only via modem. And the same with editors. But your writing ally doesn't have to be published or even a writer to be invaluable. They just have to be someone who loves to read and whose judgement you trust. In her insightful book One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers, Gail Sher calls them "writing parents" for the constant support they can provide.

Now, in time, it would be helpful once you're being published to have friends who are also being published. There are some elements of the writing/publishing experience that someone who is not part of it will get bored--and quickly--hearing hashed and rehashed. But hash and rehash you will often have to do to let off steam. For the backstage antics in publishing can make the shenanigans on a reality TV show seem like a pancake prayer breakfast attended only by unmedicated narcoleptics.

Fortunately the scribbling perverterati of San Francisco are an incredibly friendly rogues gallery. There are some rivalries but for the most part queers of a feather flock together. This makes it easier to find support here than pretty much elsewhere. And that support is critical while erotica remains a bastard child. But it will be especially necessary as erotica becomes more lucrative/acceptable (I'm never sure which is the chicken and which is the egg here) to the mainstream. And Ashcroft or no, it is happening, dear readers. Not everywhere certainly. But you and this fabulous web site are proof. And Big Business (and traditional publishing is nothing but nowadays) is watching.

If you were suddenly transported to a barren deserted island, what three books would you want to have along "for company?"

Sweet Brother William, I hate this question--if only because you've asked me to take three scrolls from the library at Alexandria. In fact, if I'm going to be transported, can't it be to the library at Alexandria. Or better still, some future hybrid of that library's collection with all the titles since it burnt down and all the titles to come after this interview.

But that's not the question and since I've relished the tender grilling you've given me here, I'll pick three: The Way of Life, Witter Bynner's translation of the Tao Te Ching; Clive Barker's Imajica; and Virginia Woolf's Orlando.

I guess the secret's out: I love a tale of magic realism built around a love story.

Finally, if you could assemble all your new and potential readers together, what would you tell them to be prepared for your next "literotica" adventure?

Y'ain't seen nothin' yet. If you've read this far, you're queerer than me and thus will delight in getting your freak on and worked over in Satyriasis. For there, dear reader, you will learn of the dastardly doings of dyke cabaret star Lezzie Beddeath and her lesbian potluck that puts both Petronius and Fellini's Satyricon to shame. And here you will meet a Poe-addicted hustler who teaches a shady dot com entrepreneur just where he can put his spying digital cam. Stroke along as a straight man learns how to write realistic gay porn from his girlfriend and his gay twin brother. I call it "Het Over Heels". Can you say bend over, boyfriend?! Those are just three of the clit-slickening and cock-twitching tales that await you.

The other ten I still have to write.

And I will--one day at a time--for the next six months.