A-Z Challenge: Z is for Zinc

When I was in grade six, everyone in my class had to do a project about one of our province's resources. 

I really wanted to do zinc but I couldn't find enough information on it, so I had to do canola. (If you're sensing a theme here, you're not wrong). 

It was, predictably, pretty lame. My mom went nuts with the project and turned it into this huge production (basically this episode of Dexter). 

A-Z Challenge: Y is for Yakitori

Try to find a word for the A-Z Challenge, find a new food to try! (And learn a new word. Though I still think online Scrabble dictionaries are cheating).

Yakitori sounds amazing, and as of this moment I am making it my personal mission to try some. (Considering that Calgary is almost 5x larger than the city where I live, I'll probably have better luck finding some there. Good thing that's where I'm headed! With any luck, by the time this post goes live, I will have eaten some.)

A-Z Challenge: X is for Xenophilia (Sort Of)

I wanted to do a unique, interesting X word and avoid the obvious X-ray, xylophone, etc.

Ideally what you would be reading now is a story about a man encountering some sort of alien species and the joy they have finding out that yes, it is in fact anatomically possible.

Sadly, not only has this month been insane for me, I am also leaving on a trip tomorrow (or four days ago, depending on whether you're me or not) and that story will have to lurk in the back of my mind until I have the time to bring it to life.

So, apologies. If you would like to see this story happen, feel free to poke me. Poking moves it up my list of priorities.

I hope you've all had an excellent four days in the future!

A-Z Challenge: W is for What Do Bottoms Get Out Of It?

Facebook does, occasionally, help productivity.

I was really, really struggling to come up with a W, mostly because I leave tomorrow morning (or, when you read this, a few days ago) and I was running out of time.

All I could think was 'walrus' and that was just silly. I tried to find a gif from the American Dad episode where Stan and Steve act like walruses, and then I got distracted by a site with American Dad gifs. I found one of my favourites, but there weren't any apostrophes and it bothered me. I Googled the quote to see if I could find a different gif  (No :( ) but a bunch of sites about whether it was okay to be gay and Christian came up, so I had to check that out (according to the top one, yes). And there was another site about how gay the movie Frozen is. I haven't seen the movie, but I thought, hey, if it's like ultra-pissing-people-off gay, I'll check it out (No :( ) Aaaaaand then I took a break on Facebook and the rest is this post.

Someone had mentioned some of their vanilla friends wondering what, exactly, a bottom (slave/sub/etc) got out of a BDSM arrangement, and it's not the first time I've heard that question asked.

A-Z Challenge: V is for Veil

(I'm totally cheating--this is an edited version of a post from an old blog...but this month has been crazy and I'm leaving for a trip tomorrow.)

Veils. 

On men.

Sexy. (And, for the purpose of this post, I am only talking about veils on men. This blog is not about religion or politics).

I read somewhere that there is no single facial feature that allows for universal
facial recognition. People have to be able to see the whole face in order to recognize someone. I think that's why some people react so strongly to veils of any kind, because so much of human relations are through the face. When they're upset by a veil, they're really thinking, "Ahhhhh!!!! I can't see his faaaaaace!!!"







Look at this guy! I can't see his whole face! He could have warts. He could have scars. He could be the most beautiful man on earth and I'll never know!

Veils add mystery to interaction, and most people don't like mystery unless they're specifically looking for it.

For me, that mystery is part of a veil's charm. Reading someone's emotions becomes limited to the eyes. Eyes are very expressive, but most Westerners are used to getting non-verbal cues from other parts of the face as well.




Veils keep a part of you hidden from the world. I don't just mean actual, physical veils, of course. They can hide a good thing, something you want to keep to yourself or those you're intimate with (or bad hair day. I'm just saying...), or it could be something you don't want anyone to see because you're ashamed of it, or it's a secret, or having it out for everyone to see would leave you too raw and vulnerable to function.






This blog doesn't have nearly enough naked men yet, so here!

I love this picture. The veil doesn't hide anything, it only draws the viewer's attention and makes the whole thing more sensual. You can't see the model's face, so he is effectively veiled.

I'm sure part of the romance of veils is, for me, the purely sensual side of them. Yes, there's the mystery, but there's also the feeling of soft, gauzy material on your skin, on one of the most sensitive parts of your body (the face). You can kiss through a veil, a la Victor Hugo, and it's a totally different experience. Even the familiar becomes new, exotic, erotic. I like walking around town with a scarf over my face and just my eyes showing during the winter. I'm invisible, or rather unidentifiable. I can be anyone and no one. People can only see my clothes and the colour of my eyes and skin.

A-Z Challenge: U is for Underage Sex Toys

Okay, it sounds creepy based on my title, but I saw the opportunity to fill a letter and to perform one of my favourite rants:

Sex toys need to be available to people under 18.

How many (embarrassing, painful, costly, potentially fatal) trips to the emergency room could be avoided if people just had access to good quality, affordable insertables? I don't just mean for underage people, of course. Based on posts I've seen circulating about the contents of people's rectums, I think there's still a stigma attached to sex toys. Being able to order them online has, I'm sure, prevented a lot of mishaps...but again, while you can lie and click the "Yes I'm Over 18" button, chances are you won't have a credit card. You could steal your parents', but then there's the awkwardness of explaining what that discreet purchase actually was.

Without going into too much detail: yes, I personally could have really used a proper insertable before I was old enough to go into an adult store. I was comfortable enough to visit one as soon as I turned 18, but I knew bupkiss about what to get and it was years before I learned enough to select the right toy (silicone, silicone, silicone. I have very sensitive skin. To the point that I have to use baby shampoo. If anyone knows a Burt's Bee's quality shampoo for adult's sensitive scalps, I'd love to hear about it!)--and afford it.

TL;DR:

- sex toys need to be available to everyone and anyone, discreetly and affordably
- education about sex toys should be available to everyone and anyone. The 'condom on the banana' routine does not count
- no one wants to end up in an emergency room with a lightbulb up their ass (unless that's what you're into. Which is cool)

A-Z Challenge: T is for Too Good

Josh didn't really want to go out for his birthday, but his friend Tony insisted. He can't believe it when a hot guy hits on him and wants to go home with him! Roy is well-hung and worried about hurting Josh, but Josh insists he can take it. They have a great time together, but Josh has a nagging suspicion that Roy might not be telling him everything.

Genres: M/M, Contemporary

(Part of Torquere Press' Take It Like A Man anthology)

Read an Excerpt

Buy Link

A-Z Challenge: S is for Squid

Squid are very important to me.

Not in the usual, I-like-to-eat-them way, because I don't.

When I was five or so, a friend loaned me their cassette tape of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and unwittingly triggered an obsession, about 20,000 Leagues in general and squid in particular. I happily marched off to the library to learn more about my favourite cephalopod (though octopi also rock).

Only, there were no books about squid. It was a crushing blow. This was pre-internet, after all. I asked my mom what to do, and she told me I should write my own book. I was like, with what information??? The whole point of getting a book about squid is to learn about them because I've got nothing. Everything I know is from this child's version of 20,000 Leagues. Do you want me to make stuff up?!

I learned young that, if it doesn't exist, you'll just have to fucking write it yourself. (I don't remember if I ever wrote the book).

One of my favourite places in the world (that I've seen so far) is the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. They had (and hopefully still have) a pink rubber squid in a tank of water, with a little hose attached to it. You squeeze a bulb and the hose pushes air into the squid and it rockets around the tank, demonstrating how squid move. It's amazing. It was amazing when I first saw it at five, and it's still amazing. (For those of you just tuning in: this post was written by several two-year-olds in a trench coat). 

A-Z Challenge: R is for Running Away

I only ever ran away from home once.

I had mono and I wasn't really sleeping (apparently there are two types of mono, one where you do nothing but sleep, and one where you're exhausted but you can't sleep. I had the second type) and I was pretty out of it. I don't remember what my mom said, but I just walked out the door and kept going. I was headed for my stepmom and stepsister's house, about a 5.5 km walk. I was practically delirious and very weak. I kept seeing flashing lights on the side of a hill and it was terrifying.

I made it as far as a funeral home before I couldn't keep going. Even though it was evening, the funeral home was open. There was a family doing a consultation of some sort in another room. I'm pretty sure I was crying and I know I didn't make a lot of sense--the man I spoke to thought I was running away from my First Kiss sister--but he let me use the phone. I called my mom's girlfriend, who was driving around looking for me (because that always works...) and went home. And I don't remember what happened after that.

The whole night was really, really surreal. I've felt a certain affection for that funeral home ever since.

What about you guys? Did you ever run away from home?

A-Z Challenge: Queen, The

If any of you have heard this one already, I'm sorry. Or...read, I guess.

When I was dating the girl I mentioned way back in L, the Queen came to our city. Naturally, we decided to skip class (which was actually really out of character for both of us, I'd like to point out) and go to see her.

We picked a few flowers from her garden (my girlfriend's, not the Queen's) and set off. Everyone stood in a line with their flowers or whatever. The Queen would take them and then hand them off to her carrying-flowers-guy (who was disappearing beneath them. Seriously. I have no idea how it was physically possible for him to hold so many bouquets).

As the Queen made her way toward us, my girlfriend apparently started having second thoughts. With every step the Queen took, my girlfriend put the flowers a little further behind her back. But the Queen had spotted them. She knew we had the damn flowers. By the time she got to us, the bouquet was completely behind my girlfriend's back.

So the entire procession came to a complete grinding halt in front of us, while I was frantically elbowing my drill sergeant girlfriend's side and hissing, "Give her the flowers!" out of the corner of my mouth.

Finally, she handed the bouquet over. The Queen said, "Thank you, my dear", and moved on.

It was, I think, a much more valuable experience than that afternoon's classes would have been.

A-Z Challenge: P is for Perfume

Despite being a little (okay, very) fucked up, Perfume is a really good movie. (I'm a little ashamed to admit that I haven't read the book, so I'll distract you by saying how cool I think it is that Dustin Hoffman has apparently just started taking quirky little roles because he wants to, like in Perfume or A Series of Unfortunate Events).

I can relate to Grenuille. While not nearly as good as his, my sense of smell is much better than most people's. (I'm also a supertaster, something I wish more people were aware of. Then I wouldn't have felt like such an asshole all the time as a kid when I didn't like something).

I can't stand perfume, the product. I have no idea why My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit someone thought it was okay to put the perfume department on the main floor in the middle of the two department stores in the mall closest to me. I understand even less the person who decided to put an even smellier store right in the freaking food court.  One of my wife's new coworkers at the bakery wears perfume, and it makes my throat get all tight and scratchy but I'm too fucking Canadian to tell her about it. So I do the proper Canadian thing and ask someone else to confront her for me.

One of my workplaces has big "Scent-Free Zone" signs all over the place--not that it makes any difference. There are still aerosol cans of Febreeze in the bathrooms. (I hide them whenever I see 'em.)

A-Z Challenge: O is for Oxygen

(I seriously had nothing and I'm super exhausted...which apparently means you get a kinky little story! I haven't written in a while, so it feels good.

Warning: This story is about gay BDSM, specifically breath play. If you are not comfortable reading about that topic, please don't continue.

Also, this is completely unedited flash fiction. Please bear that in mind!)

A-Z Challenge: N is for Night Out

I'll have been married five years in July (July 14th if we're being specific. We're big history nerds, okay?), but Night Out was my first story with an established relationship. I was really intrigued by the theme of the anthology--basically, take a message you might find on a candy heart and run with it--but it took me quite a while to flesh that out into a story:

Liam comes home from work to find only one conversation heart left in the candy bowl. His lover, Jason, produces the other candies and tells him that the heart left in the bowl is a clue. It says, “Bite Me”. The only other clue is that they’re going out for dinner. Normally Jason is terrible at keeping secrets, and he almost always cooks for them. Liam has no idea what Jason has planned.

Genres: M/M, BDSM, Contemporary

(Part of Torquere Press' Conversation Hearts anthology)

Read an Excerpt

Buy Link

A-Z Challenge: M is for Meeting

My wife and I like to say that we met at a funeral.

While not technically true (it was the second time we met. The first time we met was at a party), it makes for a better story.

The funeral was for a mutual friend, who I had briefly dated. My wife-to-be and I were both in full-on disgusting crying mode. Not so much because we were sad, though we were, but because we were so angry. Our friend had gone to a Catholic school, where everyone had done their merry best to make his life hell. And then they all came to his funeral. And the priest made it painfully clear that he didn't know anything about the deceased.

Anyway. We were both sobbing our sorry eyes out and looking at one another and each thinking, "I really want her, but this isn't the time or place and I look horrendous!"

And then, blah blah blah, we got married.

(Because of The Princess Bride. The party I met her at was hosted by my best friend, who I'd met at fencing lessons, which I'd taken because of my obsession with TPB).

We have a tradition of celebrating the day we met (March 25th) with an s-themed food: salad, salsa, sushi, sammich, etc. This year we totally forgot until my phone reminded me. We were both exhausted so we just ordered in food from a place whose name starts with 'S' and watched Goosebumps.

A - Z Challenge: L is for Les Misérables

Most of the music that makes me think of my childhood is Mozart, Andrew Lloyd Webber (especially Jesus Christ Superstar) and Les Misérables.

I had seen Les Mis live twice before I was seven. (A note to parents: you really don't have to worry about most 'adult themes' when your children are watching something. All the prostitution and death and general...Misérables-ness went right over my head! It was years before I realize how fucked up it really was). It's been a sort of background presence in my life since I was very young, with occasional flares of devotion.

A-Z Challenge: K is for Kink :D

I've been a masochist literally as long as I can remember. I still have my baby blanket packed away somewhere, and if you were to look at it you'd see that one corner is all twisted and grotelated from me shoving it under my fingernails for years.

I remember watching The Muppets' Christmas Carol with my mom when I was five or so, and asking my mom why Gonzo kept being disappointed when Rizzo got hurt and he didn't. She explained that he liked pain, and I could relate to that.

I've always been into bondage--my mom used to give me her string ties (I don't even want to know why she had so many. I don't think I ever saw her wear one) to play with, and bring me locks and keys to fiddle with. I sometimes tied all of my stuffed animals to the bed, or tied myself up. I was so good with rope that someone once told me I was better at knots than their Scout Master. I once bragged that I could escape from having my hands tied behind my back, so my grandfather did. And I escaped. (He also once shut me in the garage until I learned to make a sound by blowing over a bottle. These are both good memories, oddly enough...)

I always knew more or less what I wanted; it wasn't a struggle or a discovery to realize that I was into BDSM as I got older. I cannot thank the internet enough for being around during my sexually formative years, bursting with kinky information. I can't even imagine how lonely those pre-internet days must have been for budding kinky people.

(Fun fact: the first time I heard the term 'BDSM', I was watching The Matrix with my (first, now ex) girlfriend. When we got to the club scene, she turned to me and said, "Ew, BDSM!" I asked her what that meant, and I don't remember what she told me but she made it sound really scary and definitely something to be avoided. She also told me about how she didn't like reading BDSM LotR fanfic with bondage and stuff, and I was like, "...yes...terrible. Tell me more, so I can be sure to avoid it..." *shifty eyes* And then we had lots of (what I would consider kinky) roleplays.

How about you guys? Particular kinks? Childhood proclivities? :D

A-Z Challenge: J is for Jericho

Another letter I really struggled with...

But here's a couple of odd things about my wife and I:

- while we went to the same high school and our circles of friends overlapped, we didn't meet until after I'd graduated (I know, cradle robber!)

- I've known most of her exes since they were teeny tiny children and it weirds me out (thought not as much as my mom's habit with my exes moms...)

- one of those exes names is Jericho and I know that's a stretch (I'm laughing to myself because of a horrible in-joke and I'm sorry), but today was un grande clusterfuck and I've got nothing and my brain is tired and tomorrow promises localized clusterfuck showers...so enjoy! Better luck with...what letter comes after J...K! (The letters...they just keep coming! I'm glad I typed up at least a few of them in March. As you can probably tell, I'm getting a bit nutty. So Imma eat and go to bed. <3)

A-Z Challenge: I is for Island

I think the only island I've ever been to is Newfoundland, and I can't recommend it highly enough. I went with my grandparents one summer. My grandparents are reverse-snowbirds--they travel during the summer and stay home during the winter. They visit relatives and go hiking across Canada with their fifth wheel. I only went once, and it was amazing.

I was traveling as an Unaccompanied Minor (I had to wear a hat and a badge and everything and it was super embarrassing!), because I was flying out to meet my grandparents there. I was sitting next to two older women during the flight, and when Newfoundland appeared out of the fog, they both got really excited and it was clear that they were going home.

My grandma is really into birds, so I think we visited every single bird on the island. Aside from the puffins, it was basically seagull, seagull, slightly-different-seagull to me, but it was still pretty neat. We went on several whale-watching tours (I have so many pictures of whales' tails), including one on a reconstructed Viking ship. It had a motor, but once we got out into the water they turned it off and we sailed around for a while. Very cool. (They also had a helmet and sword for people to try on...and of course my grandparents took a picture of me with them...)

We also went to L'Anse aux Meadows, which is definitely worth checking out if you find yourself in Newfoundland...which you should! More pictures of me, blushing, standing next to people in historical costumes.

We went on one hike, up Gros Morne. It was very hot, and I do not deal well with heat, but I survived. Also, scree is evil. As tempting as it was to stop for a swim, I'm glad my grandparents talked me out of it or we probably would have had to spend the night!

It was so hot, I found out the next day, when my grandparents paid for me to go horseback riding, that horses had been fainting.

And we were climbing a mountain.

Both my grandparents and I are into museums and history and fossils and things, so we took a lot of interpretive tours and visited a lot of museums and things.

I got to eat a piece of an iceberg. (I told some friends about this recently and we decided that I'm single-handedly responsible for global warming, with my iceberg-eating habit).

I'm not sure if I could pick a highlight for the trip, honestly. I'd love to go back, with my wife.

A-Z Challenge: H is for Horse

I've always loved horses.

My mom doesn't like animals, so I didn't have a pet until I was nine (okay, I had goldfish when I was four or five, but they didn't even live with me). We used to go horseback riding for my birthdays, and when I was old enough I started taking riding lessons.

I always wanted a horse, but I never really believed I'd get the chance. Even now that I've had a horse for more than three years, I still can't believe it!

My wife and I met a couple through our local BDSM group. The wife was a horse breeder, and when she found out I was interested in horses, she encouraged me to come out and meet hers. She bred Friesians and was just beginning a Drum Horse breeding program. One of the mares she'd purchased for the Drum Horse program had arrived already pregnant and had her foal. The foal's sire was unknown, and she wasn't a Drum Horse, so she was being sold. I leapt at the opportunity. I paid $250 and agreed to help around the farm to pay for board. What could be better than working at a horse farm in return for having a horse?

My baby! 

Jehna as I first met her--a baby moose (she ate that halter)

We eventually moved her to a boarding stable, where she grew and grew and oh dear god she's still growing. She is (probably) at least half Shire, possibly fully.

She loves to jump. I do not. Hence, free jumping

A-Z Challenge: G is for Greece (and Germany!)

I really, really struggled to come up with a G. Because my current fandom is The Hobbit, I kept thinking "Gold", but I don't really have anything to say about it!

I was walking home from work yesterday when the topic came to me. It's amazing how well not thinking about something and a little exercise works for thinking. Anyway, this is a bit of an addendum to D is for Dollars.

I got my first job because I wanted to go to Greece. Every year, my high school sponsored a trip, and when I was in grade ten the trip was to Greece.