Carnal Machines is out and available and I’m kicking off a blog tour with the authors. But before I get to the particulars of the tour, I thought I’d talk just a little bit about corsets—me and corsets.
I love corsets; I own three of them. I think the fascination began in my years doing Renaissance festivals. Those were called bodices, though, not corsets. Although they laced up tightly, giving me a smaller waist, accentuating my hips and making my practically non-existent breasts mound just a bit, giving me the appearance of cleavage. (I was tiny back then.)
Those bodices weren’t steel boned, they only had quilted cotton “ribs” but they were still constricting and body shaping devices. And back in those days, I could put them on in the morning and work hard in the sweltering heat for ten hours and still be able to breathe. Ah, but it did feel good to unlace at the end of a long, sweaty day.
Now, I own three steel-boned corsets. Yes, there will be no pictures. (I’m not tiny anymore.) Now, they help to cinch in my non-existent waist but don’t do all that much for my still non-existent tits. But they do still make me feel totally sexy. The first one I bought was an electric blue silk which was very elegant but somehow ended up being too large. I traded it in for a smaller one but they didn’t have the same fabric so I ended up with a black and blue striped silk that was rather nice. It’s too small, now.
I’ve always had a thing for leather and so my next corset was an over-the-bust, again black and blue, leather corset. (Those colors have such lovely connotations and I still get nice and sweaty when wielding a heavy flogger.) It’s lovely and I fell in love with the makers, S M Hertz because they actually took the bust in the following year, for free--on a leather corset! (Yes, I really do have non-existent tits. I’m just saying…) In fact, I love them so much, I bought another corset from them, this time something that reminded me more of steampunk. It too is leather, black and white, this time. With a long black skirt and a very cool steampunk jacket, it works perfectly for Carnal Machines.
Now, to do a Carnal Machines reading so I can wear the outfit!
Here are the blog tour authors and their dates with links to their blogs. I can’t wait to see what everyone writes about!
May 11 Elias St. James will be blogging right here at dlkingerotica.blogspot.com
I have a story in the anthology. It’s called “The Treatment.” Knowing me, I’m sure you can just imagine what that might be about… I think I’ll leave it to your imagination until you go out and get a copy of the book for yourself. But let me share the introduction with you:
The Victorians wrote some of the best and most enduring erotica. For such a tightly laced age, people spent a lot of time thinking about things carnal. And, speaking of tightly-laced, I love the feel of being laced into a tight corset; the constriction; the way the fabric encases my body and hugs my curves. It makes me feel powerful. But that’s a tale, perhaps best left for another time.
Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, et al enthralled us with their visions of new possibilities during the steam age. They, of course, didn’t coin the phrase, steampunk. No, that was our generation’s answer to the pressures of the technological age (that’s the age after the space age—there are lots of ages). We find it somehow comforting to go back to a simpler time but, because we can’t do without our technical marvels, we recreate them as they might have been made in the steam age. Steampunk.
But what was that about corsets? Oh, yes, corsets, tightly-laced carnality. Steampunk, even without sex, is erotic; with sex, it’s over-the-top hot. Just think of all the deliciously erotic machines that could be run on steam power or a rudimentary form of electricity. The authors of this anthology thought of little else, or so it would seem.
A widowed lady engineer invents a small device that can store the energy from sexual frustration and convert it to electricity to help power a home. Teresa Noelle Roberts shows us what it can do, confronted with sexual fulfillment.
What volume of steampunk would be complete without a tale of sailing ships and the men who sail them? Poe Von Page introduces us to the mutinous crew of the Danika Blue and their new captain. Of course this ship sails the solar winds of space, rather than the sea and the captain has quite the interesting relationship with the ship’s redheaded cartographer, with her delicate features, ecru eyes, black lace dress and charcoal-smudged fingers.
Then there’s the very special room on the top floor in the House of the Sable Locks, a brothel where sexually discriminating men go to have their fantasies fulfilled. Even if a man daren’t put those fantasies into words, Elizabeth Schechter’s “Succubus” will give the madam all the information she needs with which to make her clients happy.
There are brothels, flying machines, steam-powered conveyances, manor houses, spiritualist societies. The following stories afford intelligently written, beautifully crafted glimpses into other worlds, where the Carnal Machines won’t fail to seduce you, get you wet or make you hard so, lie back, relax; a happy ending is guaranteed.
D. L. King
New York City
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