Beauty & Fashion

As an author, it’s hard not to imagine the people who’ll read your words as you’re writing them. When I was writing 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do – which is coming out on October 12th and available for preorder now! – I thought a lot about who I hoped would read it.

It’s geared toward vanilla people and total beginners to kink, although I think there’s still plenty in it that more advanced kinksters will find interesting and illuminating, by sheer virtue of the fact that it really does contain one hundred and one different kinks. You’re sure to find something in it that you’ve never tried before, and that’s really thrilling to me!

Here are 3 totally fictional people I imagine would read my book, and the stories of how they found it…

Jess stuffs 101 Kinky Things into their backpack as they leave the bookstore, and starts their walk back to their apartment, already rehearsing the speech they plan to bust out when they arrive home.

Hey Kyla? You know that lipstick you wear sometimes? The red one?

Their sneaker soles hit the sidewalk pavement with sharp snapping noises, their pace picking up. Jess is more terrified by the conversation that awaits them than they are by anything they’ve encountered in their sports journalism dayjob; live post-game interviews with towering basketball players are way less intimidating than telling your girlfriend about your secret fetish.

Well, uh, I found this book that talks about how lipstick can be a kink for some people… and I was wondering…

Making quick work of the downhill trek, Jess lets their mind wander to the last time they had sex with Kyla. Her soft mewls and pillowy curves under Jess’s muscled body. Her kisses and caresses becoming steadily more desperate as Jess slammed into her with their blue silicone cock. The way her wavy crimson hair frizzed up from all the sweat. Jess’s clit throbs in their boxer-briefs at the thought.

I thought maybe it would be cool if you gave me a blowjob in lipstick, so I could… see whether it’s really something I’m interested in… maybe?

Jess’s key seems way too loud in their apartment door as they let themself in. Kyla’s sprawled on the couch, munching a salad and watching Top Chef. “Hey, babe!” she calls. “How was work?”

“It was okay,” Jess hedges, and tugs the book from their backpack. “Um, I wanna talk to you about something but I’m kinda embarrassed.” Kyla mutes the TV show and quirks an eyebrow. Ruffling their short dark hair, Jess checks the book’s table of contents and adds, “Can you flip to page 159 and let me know what you think?” Despite all their practicing, they just can’t quite bring themselves to say the words.

Kyla takes the book from Jess, a quizzical look in her eyes, and finds the page in question. As she reads, her eyes don’t widen in fear or narrow in disgust; instead, they light up, delight gradually filling them like the dawn of a new day. When she’s done, she lifts her head to look at Jess, who’s taken a seat beside her on the couch. “Shall I go get my tube of ‘Lucky Red’?” she asks mischievously. Jess bites their lip and nods, already hard and throbbing.

Anna was tired of the pitying looks her friends always gave her when she talked about her divorce over brunch. Couldn’t they see that it was something to be celebrated? Sure, she and Tom had been together for 22 years, but that didn’t mean they were destined to be together forever. In fact, she mused to herself as she walked away from the last settlement signing session at Tom’s lawyers’ office, it had been a long time since she’d felt this happy and free.

Having taken the day off from the art gallery for the occasion, she figured she’d go shopping (with some of Tom’s money, admittedly) and find herself something pretty to celebrate her newly reclaimed singlehood. But the Chanel, Gucci, and YSL shops didn’t light her fire as much as they once had. It was only when she stopped into an upscale bookshop and saw glimmering gold text proclaiming “101 Kinky Things“ that she felt a spark of something like excitement.

As she paged through the text, she couldn’t help but reflect on all the late-night arguments she and Tom had had, probably waking their neighbors with their antics. It was always some version of the same fight: she wanted sexual adventure; Tom didn’t. She wanted to go to the local sex club and try out swinging; Tom didn’t. She wanted to experiment with bondage, sensory deprivation, facesitting; Tom didn’t. She wanted him to appreciate (or even just acknowledge) the pearl-handled flogger she’d brought home from Agent Provocateur; Tom didn’t.

When Anna landed on the page titled “Dominance,” her breath caught. A blush crept onto her cheeks and she had to remind herself mentally that the bookish strangers milling around her couldn’t possibly know about the femdom porn she feverishly flipped through late at night. They couldn’t possibly know that her ex-husband’s utter disinterest in submitting to her had been the nail in the coffin of their doomed relationship. No one knew that except Anna’s leatherbound diary and her best friend Janine, truth be told. And maybe the people at PornHub.

Tucking the book under her arm, Anna sidled up to the cash register and handed her new treasure to the clerk. He swept his dark brown curls out of his eyes before scanning the book’s barcode, and Anna looked him up and down like a hungry wolf finally allowed to prowl free. His nametag said Danny. “I’ve heard good things about this one,” he said conversationally, taking her heavy gold credit card from her hands.

“Always good to learn something new,” Anna purred with a smirk, before scribbling her number on Danny’s copy of her receipt. “And to have someone to practice with.” She winked, and then strolled out into the sunshine, a new woman.

It had been 3 weeks since Sadie had been to the dungeon, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the scene she’d seen there.

Her friend Marissa had taken her along. Sadie, a notoriously shy and anxious femme, had been a wallflower at every kinky or queer event she’d ever been to. She couldn’t help it – her body just seized up with panic whenever she stepped into one of those spaces, like every moment was a matter of life and death. Far too often, she’d found herself face-to-face with some hot butch girl or charming trans boy or leather-clad enby and found she could barely get any words out. If she couldn’t even say “Hi, I’m Sadie,” she wasn’t sure how she’d ever manage to actually meet someone and ask for what she wanted in bed.

The dungeon had been different, though, because Sadie had been allowed to just observe. In fact, she’d been encouraged to do so. Marissa, a towering blonde with a staggering amount of confidence, had tugged Sadie to a leather sofa at the side of the room. “Sit here. Watch,” said Marissa, before strutting over to the St. Andrew’s cross and simply waiting. Marissa was the type of beauty who could just show up in a room and people would be drawn to her like flies. It wasn’t long before a boyish lesbian with an emerald fauxhawk strode up and started whispering to Marissa. Sadie couldn’t hear the words, but she could tell from Marissa’s sweet smile and coy body language that there was flirting going on.

What had followed was a knife play scene, something Sadie had never even heard of before, let alone witnessed. The fauxhawked girl had a thing for knives, and Marissa had a thing for adventure, so before too long she was cuffed to the cross, spread-eagle, with the blade of a cold steel knife being slowly and carefully dragged across her skin. It left dainty white marks against the pink of her breasts and belly and arms and thighs. Sadie shivered in her seat. She was so utterly rapt that when a Bettie Page-looking femme sat down beside her and tried to chat her up, all she could manage was, “Sorry, I’m watching my friend’s scene.” She was a useless flirt anyway but she’d be especially useless right then.

Sadie was pondering that fateful knife-play scene, yet again, as she walked uptown to the queer book club Marissa had invited her to. “You like nerds, right?” Marissa had said. “Book clubs are total nerd bait.” Sadie was surprised when she knocked on the door at the address she’d been given and the person who answered was that same Bettie Page lookalike who’d attempted to talk to her at the dungeon.

“I remember you!” the girl practically shouted, immediately so much more gregarious than Sadie had ever been. “Come in! I’m Lulu. Want a beer?”

As a brand-new member, Sadie hadn’t done that week’s reading, but the group was happy to fill her in. A bespectacled androgyne handed her a copy of 101 Kinky Things. “It’s new,” Lulu explained. “There’s a lot of information in there.” The others laughed in agreement.

While everyone chattered happily around her, Sadie started to flip through the book, eventually stopping on a page titled “Fear Play.” A now-familiar shiver went through her as she read the author’s suggestion to “replicate the terror of being held at knifepoint” by showing one’s partner a big, scary knife, blindfolding them, and touching them with a butter knife or credit card instead, letting their fearful mind fill in the rest. She was so absorbed in the words that she barely noticed when Lulu knelt beside her and handed her the aforementioned beer.

“Are you a pervert like me?” Lulu asked with a dark giggle. “Because I love scaring the shit out of pretty girls.”

Sadie gulped, blushed, and managed to get a word out at long last. “Yes.”

Curious? Preorder your copy and let me know what adventures you get up to once you read it! 😉