Now Out in Paperback! M4M

My new paperback collection, M4M is now available from Amber Allure (the GLBT imprint of Amber Quill Press). The book combines my best-selling, happily-ever-after romantic comedy stories, VGL Male Seeks Same and NEG UB2, both previously available only as ebooks. M4M combines them in a nifty paperback edition, perfect for summer beach reading. This edition is ideal for those of you who might want to see how a horror writer does romance (apparently, surprisingly well, because the two stories above sold almost better than anything I've written!) but who don't want to go the e-book route.

To get your copy, go here or here.

Synopsis:
Two great stories. One great love. Get between the covers with Ethan and Brian, the men whose hearts connected online and offline in the best-selling VGL Male Seeks Same. Follow them on their continuing journey in NEG UB2, where a shocking health diagnosis derails the couple’s blissful romance and teaches them both a lot about acceptance, forgiveness, and faith...especially when it comes to love.

Previously available only in electronic format, these twin novellas of gay erotic romance have now been combined for a paperback edition!

Reviews of VGL Male Seeks Same

"5 Stars!...Rick R. Reed has a wonderful sense of humour and timing. His characterization of Ethan was superb. This is the first story I have read by Rick R. Reed and if this is at all representative of his writing he'll become an auto buy for me. His timing is superb, his prose is exceptional and his characterizations are to die for. I was totally invested in Ethan and I felt every slight, imagined or real, that he experienced. Parts of this story were so poignant as Ethan looked at his life stretching before him with no one to share it that I could feel his pain...Buy this book."--Jessewave, Reviews By Jessewave

"5 Divas!...A Recommended Read!...Could easily be made into a movie...Deeply erotic, satisfying...The crisp dialogue and brutally honest portrayal of two lonely men, who at heart really are very good looking, is a story for all romance lovers…not just fans of gay romantic fiction. It's a story to be treasured, in all its intimate splendor."--AJ Llewellyn, Dark Diva Reviews

Reviews of NEG UB2

"...One of the best aspects of Reed’s book is his unpredictability. Nothing is sacred and every possible topic can be tackled. Here the author takes the happy ever after ending from his first book and turns it on its head when one of the characters is suddenly HIV positive. From the panic at his initial diagnosis to understanding medication and costs, this emotional story shows the scary and realistic aspects often overlooked when HIV changes someone’s life. Well written with an intensity to the prose, this wonderful story shows the positive and negative elements associated with the first brush of HIV while showing it’s not the death sentence it used to be and happy endings are still possible."--Kassa, Manic Readers

"There's no protection from Reed's quick wit and ability to craft a winning and thoroughly enthralling love story."--Shawn Decker, AIDS activist, speaker, and author of My Pet Virus

Jardonn's Interview with Boris Keressos

by Jardonn Smith

A quarter of the way into writing Danube Divide, my tale of Romans and Germanics and conflicts of civilizations, one of the characters who was to be a secondary player forced his way to the forefront. His name is Boris Keressos, or, if need be, Father Timothy, depending upon the company he keeps at any given time. Not only did he become the love interest for Gregoric, one of the lead Gothic characters, Boris made himself the axis of the entire story, taking the plot in directions I never could have imagined.

In this chronicled lifetime he's been an adorable street urchin thieving to survive, a young soldier of the Roman legions in the eastern provinces of the mid-300's AD, and a mature-man Christian priest ministering to Roman soldiers in the field or their garrisons. Boris is an alpha-male in every sense of the term, and since I suspect he put this interview idea into my head, I'll find out.

Jardonn: I assume, Boris, you asked me for this interview. Why?

Boris: To promote myself.

Jardonn: Like you did in my book?

Boris: Exactly. Aren't you glad I did?

J: Don't know yet. Book's only been out a few weeks.

B: Don't lie to me. If I hadn't jumped in, you'd still be sitting there poking along with your story. I had to do it. Watching you beat yourself up trying to write such boring drivel made me want to strangle you.

J: Could you strangle me?

B: Of course not. Spirits don't have hands.

J: So you cajoled me intead?

B: Spoke loud and clear.

J: Why?

B: I already told you. Your problem was you were writing about men you didn't know. All that mush. Talking about how they so loved one another. How the look in their lover's eyes make them giddy. What horseshit! Men don't talk about it. They just do it. When they speak, their words are of important subjects, not romance. When they romance, they express it with actions, not words.

J: I know, Boris. I was trying to write for an audience I don't understand.

B: Which is why you were getting nowhere. There's only one audience of importance, and that's you. Those who get it, those who want to read about manly men and not mealy-mouthed wussies will find you and follow.

J: When?

B: When they're supposed to. Don't worry about it. If you don't like what you're doing, find some other way to express yourself.

J: No. I enjoy it, as long as I have guys like you to keep my head in the right place.

B: Ok, I'm here. So why don't you cut to the chase and ask me about Gregoric?

J: You've taken over the interview, Boris. Ask yourself.

B: Right. After I got you to shit-can the chapter where I'm trying to woo Gregoric with words, I knew I'd have to take us back in time, off the Hadrianopolis battlefield in order to tell my story proper.

J: Your capture by Tervingi Goths north of the Danube?

B: Yes, and rather than sweet-talking Gregoric, something I would never do, I recognized his attraction to me during my torture.

J: How so?

B: Gregoric's thrashing upon my naked flesh was half-hearted at best. He was forced by his chieftain to participate, but his blows were nothing like those of his fellow tribesmen.

J: Had you singled him out before this event?

B: No. My mind was focused on preparing for the punishment I knew would come. Once I withstood the torture and made my escape up the tree, I knew Gregoric could be made my ally.

J: But they kept you as their prisoner.

B: True, more like a slave, really, which allowed me to win Gregoric by stimulating his youthful brain. Teaching him all things Roman -- the arts, engineering, philosophies and religions.

J: How did religion play a role in your seduction of Gregoric?

B: The cave. It's where I taught him about that illegal religion. The one banned by the Christians. It was our secret place where we made love, and believe me, the seduction was mutual. Gregoric and I loved one anothers's brains long before we ever found a safe way to express our admirations physically.

J: Once you did, nothing could keep you apart.

B: Mentally, no. If only that were true physically, but then there wouldn't be much drama in our tale. Would there?

J: Again, you are asking the questions when I am supposed to...

B: Let me ask you one more while I'm at it.

J: Can I stop you?

B: No. You tried to write something out of your element because you'd seen comments posted saying your books are not romantic. Here's a good comeback question for such nonsense. Gregoric allowed himself to be taken prisoner because he knew it was his only chance for rescuing me. Gregoric put his own life at risk for me. What could possibly be more romantic than that?

J: Nothing. Which is why I hope next time I try to write what others call romance, either you or one of your buddies will come along to save me from myself.

B: We always have and will.

J: Good. Now, Boris, I'm done with you. Go find Gregoric or somebody else who'll suck your dick. I would if I could.

B: You did me one better, Jardonn. You put me in your book.

Boris has left me for now, gone back to wherever he hangs out these days. One of his lives on earth is chronicled in my Danube Divide, and here's the link to my web site where you can read more about it.

http://www.jardonnserotictales.com/

Blood and Chocolate

BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE
by William Maltese

Excerpt from my short story Black-Candle Reader due to appear in an anthology of ghost stories due out from MLR Press later this year:

I accompany my drink with a square of Xoçai™ XoBiotic™ dark chocolate which I truly believe, what with its combination with açai and blueberries, provides antitoxic benefits that I can’t get from regular candy. It’s the difficult individual packaging of the latter that occupies enough of my attention to keep me from getting any more turned on by Jeremy’s sexual sounds. I’m unwrapping a second piece of the chocolate when he comes in, licking his cummy fingers as he’s the one who has been eating chocolate.

“You want to be super healthy, you should eat more of my cum and less candy squares,” he says Then, he snatches the piece of unwrapped chocolate from my hand and pops it into his mouth with a wide smile.

Excerpt from my THE GLUTEN-FREE WAY: MY WAY self-help and cook-book due out later this year from Wildside/Borgo Press:

As a genuine chocolate addict and advocate of over-all healthy living, I admit to having planned, from the get-go, to plug Xoçai™ chocolate, in this non-gluten book, as a dessert option or recipe chocolate-substitute option for anyone with a gluten-allergy problem — if just because I not only personally believe this particular kind of chocolate is so beneficial to my well-being, and can be to yours, but because I’m not alone in that belief, backed up by the results of scientific studies like those conducted by, Eliot Brinton, M.D., University of Utah, on blood pressure, glucose, insulin, lipids, and other risk factors that affect the cardiovascular system.

As someone with a history of Type II Diabetes in his family, I had my blood glucose levels spike dangerously high during my mother’s long period of dying from ovarian cancer when I had the weighty responsibility of being her sole care-giver. While, since her death, my glucose levels have receded, undoubtedly accountable to a lessening of stress, I still monitor my blood sugar on a regular basis. Time after time, I’ve discovered that consumption of regular chocolate can send my blood glucose above recommended levels, while consumption of the same amount of Xoçai™ chocolate keeps them confined within prescribed safety limits.

Excerpt from the upcoming Chapter #61 my novel FLICKER: TEEN-WARRIOR SAGA (teen-angst vampire, candle-reader, werewolf, witch, warlock, chimera, dragon, zombie … et al), presently being serialized on MySpace free of charge and twice a week, prior to its 2010 print publication) — http://www.myspace.com/flickerwarriors

Since then, he came to look upon Rhoda’s blood as dessert, especially since she’s taken to eating Xoçai™ Chocolate. If she enjoys the natural benefits of all that antioxidant-rich açai berry and cacao which keeps her blood pressure and her blood sugar under control, where pigging out on regular chocolate would never do the same, Gregory, from first suck knew her blood was something special above and beyond the blood of all the other regulars upon whom he feasts. He knows that if he isn’t tempted to drink Rhoda’s blood now — and he isn’t — that whatever strangeness is happening to him may well be irreversible.

Her Xoçai™-laced blood is his, once again, for the taking. He can see just how it makes the large vein in her sexy bare throat pulse in open invitation for his canine teeth to dig in, for not the first time, and enjoy.

He gets up, goes not to the woman on the bed, with her warm, thick blood, but into the living room and, then, into the kitchen. He begins opening and shutting cabinet doors until he finds her cache of Xoçai™ chocolates — two boxes: XoBiotic™ Squares, dark chocolate with açai and blueberry; Xoçai™ MEGA Squares, dark chocolate with açai and orange. He begins unwrapping the small 1 x 1.8” individually wrapped squares and popping them into his mouth, one after another after another.

He can hardly believe the ecstasy of the entire undiluted-by-blood flavor suddenly exploded upon his tongue and sliding sensuously the length of his throat to his belly.

He’s still tasting the wondrous aftermath of healthy dark chocolate, açai, orange, and blueberry, later that night, at home, in his own living room, in his own easy chair, when Timothy comes in carrying a package and handing it over.

“It’s a gift to you from Melissa,” Timothy says, by way of explanation. “She was inspired by a dream and hopes you’ll know the reason why.”

The quickly discarded tissue reveals a richly dark-brown candle, dribbled with brilliant red, orange, and blue wax; it all smells deliciously of chocolate.

All of the above are indicative of my recent conversion to Xoçai Chocolate and rationale for my having once again indulged my fetish for candles by commissioning wax-artisan Jfay to provide me with her truly inspired “Blood and Chocolate” candle for my ever expanding collection:

Link to see what I'm currently munching: http://www.mxi.myvoffice.com/williammaltese

Starship Intercourse Part 4

From the alienated brain of William Maltese comes part four of his pulp fiction from Greenleaf Classics... STARSHIP INTERCOURSE...

“Well?” Susan had asked later, letting Patricia know by the very sound of her voice that she certainly didn’t believe one word of the story about the car breaking down.

“Well, what? Patricia had replied. But she’d long ago decided this was one secret she wasn’t going to keep to herself. There were some things a girl just had to get off her breasts, or bust (she had smiled at that bit of word-play). She had looked at Susan and given her a girl-to-girl smile. “It’s a good ten inches,” she’d whispered with a girlish grin.

“You lucky bitch!” Susan had squealed.

Patricia had noticed how the squeal brought glances from others in the dining room. For once, she didn’t care.

“How was it?” Susan had asked, her voice returning to a whisper.

“I thought I was going to die,” Patricia had said. Then smilingly, she rolled her eyes. “But what a hell of a way to go!”


***


Pushing her hips up to meet the downward deep-thrust of his cock, Patricia rolled slightly as Buzz’s penetrating erection ripped into her. It was as if twenty-five years of lost fucking had been channeled into this one frantic hump.

His hands stroked her ass and, simultaneously, pulled her body in close to his each and every time his cock rammed the dewy corridors of her twat. He increased his frantic pumping.

“Harder!” she screamed. “Harder!” She wouldn’t have cared if her cries had awakened the rest of the crew. She was too far gone to give a damn about anything except the pleasure. “Harder!” she screamed again.

He was already pumping her hard; any harder and she would’ve passed out with the pleasure and the pain. He brought his lips to her cheek, slobbering in his attempt at kisses. His tongue ran over her face, turning it wet with spit.

She worked to return his every thrust. Her tongue simultaneously wet his face with her own spit. Her body thrashed on the padded floor, her cries filling the air as if she were being impaled on a Krupp-steel spike rather than a taut pole of human flesh.

He echoed her moans, his cock speeding through the juice swimming within her hole, drilling her — in and out — in and out. Their breathing grew heavier, deeper, and more frantic. Their rasping heaves sounded loudly as their trembling bodies pushed closer and closer to orgasm.

She climaxed, first, and her insides melted and then rolled in heavy waves of pleasure like the sea in motion. Wave after wave of ecstasy washed through her and threatened to drown her. Somewhere through the resulting blur, she became aware of Buzz’s cries of pleasure, feeling his cummy come explode up the crack in her lower belly.

“Fuck!” she screamed, her mind fooled into thinking this fuck was all fucks, her mind’s-eye remembering all the other times Buzz had fucked her, all the times Williams had fucked her, all of the other times any and all cock had pumped cum up her hole. Her mind conjured a collage of three-dimensional phalli spurting, spouting, and spewing hot jism up her guts.

Buzz held to her climaxing body, hugging it with an intensity that might have been painful if not for the overshadowing pleasure. He kept her entrapped within his embrace as his cock continued its frantic pumping even after the last reservoir of his sperm exited his completely deflated nuts.

Finally, he was through. He rolled off of her and lie beside her.

For the next few moments, there seemed to be no sounds within the space that contained them, except for their ragged breathing and rapid heartbeats as they recuperated from their mutual climaxes. Then, their beating hearts and breathing quieted, too, and Buzz’s cock finished its wilt into complete flaccidness within her still-containing twat.

Suddenly, his body stiffened but not in orgasm.

“Buzz?” she asked.

He pressed his mouth in close to her left ear and said, “Listen.”


She listened, hearing nothing. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Not a thing?”

She listened again. She could tell he was holding his breath. She did likewise. “Nothing,” she confirmed finally.

He lifted his head from her neck.

“Oh, my God!” he said and got up from beside her; their sweat glossed their parted flesh.

“Buzz, what is it?”

“It’s past,” he said. “The time, I mean.”

She got to her feet, too, suddenly, like him, realizing the full impact of what had happened.

“We missed it, you mean?”

“It would seem so?” He was dismayed, rightly so, and sounded that way.
He flicked a button on the machine marked RECORD and waited for an instant before pushing REPLAY.

They listened … to the silence.

“We didn’t miss anything,” Buzz said. “There’s no incoming message to miss.”

“But…”

“There wasn’t any incoming message to miss!” he repeated with emphasis.

“Maybe they sent it early,” Patricia tried hopefully to rationalize. “Maybe it’s already recorded and back-logged.”

Buzz stepped to the machine, again, and pushed all the proper buttons.

Again, they waited.

Excerpts-a-Plenty

Speaking of... Elisa Rolle posts a good number of them on her LiveJournal blog every weekend, one set on Saturday and another on Sunday, the majority of them from new releases or soon-to-be.

On the main page: My Reviews and Ramblings

Each will have picture of book cover, cover blurb, author-chosen excerpt and links to further investigate or purchase the book.