JoeTortuga: Blog

Chapter 5 of Summer of '89 has been submitted for posting. This time we focus on a girl his own age, Cindy King and his first date with her. This chapter surprised me a bit with the way the two bantered about, and I thought about changing it for a more normal fifteen year old dialogue. But I've always liked shows where everyone says smart things, even if their motivations aren't complex.

They aren't here either. Cindy is curious about Brian, and Brian wants to get laid. Nothing complicated about that at all.

I got an anonymous comment which -- I think -- was taking me to task for expressing morality and then writing a story which was contrary to that morality. Namely, when I had Brian say that he didn't condone what Mrs. Cooke had done (basically seducing an underage boy). And of course that's mostly what this story is about.

I'm of a few minds about that -- I do mostly agree it's wrong, but I also think Brian's overall story and arc is interesting, and this is where it begins. In my over 20 years of writing erotica, I've never published any with underage sex (or even finish any other works). I probably won't do it very often -- it's the story that gets me and what happens that I care about.

The other thing is that, while Brian and I do agree about that one point, don't confuse the morality of the character with that of the author. Brian's ethic, which I'm slowly developing is pretty against my own. He's still fun to write about and fantasize about though: the stories are interesting and the sex is hot.

That's what erotica is for. It's also for things that we wouldn't ever actually do. Written words harm no one in their construction, and it gives a chance to explore darker (and more erotic) parts of our lives.

And that's what keeps me coming back to write more.

This week's chapter title is probably the earwormyist for me (is that a word? you know what I mean). I can't hear the title without hearing Paula Abdul go "oh oh oh", and then the song just starts playing in my head.

Things heat up in this chapter, and you can see that the SaferSex stuff actually begins to tie into the story. I prefer writing (and reading) stories in which the sex-related stuff advances the story. Sex for sex's sake is nice sometimes, but isn't engaging enough for me to be a regular diet.

I wrote a series over over 50 images a few years ago, all of them written in a day and most of them under 1000 words long -- and because of the pressure, many were very poorly edited. (I'm working on fixing that on my erotica blog, where I'm posting most of them weekly). Many of them jump quickly to just sex, but many of them have good characters that came out of them.

The society blog story (Which I know is abandoned for now) came from that (and died for similar burnout reasons). The Society aka the Flower Society aka the Hephaestus Society has snuck it's own way through my work, and will continue to. I think that's a pretty commonplace BDSM idea, so I'm working to make mine more mythological and have it's own flair. It also spans time from ancient Greece to the far future.

Brian will probably meet up with them eventually, and while he is quite kinky, he probably won't join. It would be too much like being in a committed relationship and he's been burned too many times on those. But I get ahead of myself.

I hope you're enjoying Summer of '89. Part of this bellygazing is me thinking about what I'm going to work on next, (which part of Brian's story, or Society story), and what I'm going to post next. There's only 3 more weeks of Summer of '89, after all.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think and would like to read!

Well, I just submitted chapter 3 of Summer of '89, titled love shack. Here's where things start to head up for Brian, although he's a bit like the proverbial frog in a pot of water: he doesn't know how hot things will get for him, he's too busy swimming.

Interspersed throughout this story (and it's sequels) are my five rules for great sex. Not quite all of them are explicitly mentioned in this story, but they're there. I'm sure Brian will get around to mentioning them all at some point.

Chapter 2, "Wild Thing" has been submitted for posting -- meant to do it last night and got caught up in writing new stuff. I think that's an acceptable excuse.

This chapter is where the safer sex parts come. I know some people don't find condoms to be particularly sexy, but at the age when I as first having sex, buying them was like announcing to the world I was getting laid. And there are definitely sexy ways to write about and use condoms.

And trust me when I say this isn't just a barrier to stretch things out, it's all quite relevant to what happens next.

I'm switching now to posting The Cuckolder's origin stories -- a trilogy about how he became the kinky guy with a fetish for people in relationships. This first story is set in 1989, and all the chapters are top 100 hits from 1989.

This took me back a bit, because Brian and I have something in common -- we both lost our virginity in 1989. He had a better teacher and was much younger than I, but as I picked songs for this story's ten parts, it took me back to that first time I was seriously in love, and having sex.

I didn't do it on purpose -- the title is, of course, a reference to the classic "Summer of '69", but after I started doing some research, I realized what I'd done.

It's perhaps important to note that this is the first ever MF 1st story I ever wrote. It's not normally a genre that excites me. It's also one of the few times I've written about an underage character.

Teenagers aren't known for their wisdom and skill at relationships, and adults entering in the mix can only spell trouble. And there's definitely some trouble in store for Brian.