Andreas is fleeing from a man he doesn’t want only time wind up not in a different city but a different time itself. A time which he knows nothing about, except for what he has read in history books.Born of royalty and living the life of a slave, Leif finds himself drawn to the enigmatic stranger who is capture by the village. Deep down he knows he belongs to Andreas, even as his heart loves another.Rurik rules the village with a strong hand yet even he has secrets the other don’t know about. Fate throws him together with the captive and the slave and they must join together if they are too all come out of this alive.Original Prompt:Dear Author,Please tell me the story of this handsome Norseman.He went out viking and came back to this scene in his village!Who is this sexy stranger and what is happening?Photo Description: Two pictures, two men. One stares out with icy blue eyes from behind a Viking helm, his nose and cheeks covered by the metal guards, his reddish beard and long hair escaping. The other is a prisoner, collared and chained, dark haired and stubbled. Swirling tattoos mark the pale skin of his naked chest and arms.This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Hot Summer Days" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.Read the story here or find it in Don't Read in the Closet, Volume 2.__________Genre: paranormal, ménage, mild bondageTags: gay m/m, Viking, time travel, vampire, mmm romance, bad spellsWord Count: 15,752

    Sensuous Magic has the answers. Writer, therapist, and sex radical Patrick Califia-Rice has updated his classic introduction to S/M and power play to embrace couples of all persuasions and at every stage of experience. Although not a comprehensive technical guide (you will need a book on rope bondage, for instance, if you want to learn appropriate knots and techniques), Califia-Rice's text offers insightful warnings, advice, and commentary, the kind of guidance you might expect from a seasoned mentor. It is especially well-suited to daring beginners, who can learn the basics on safety and communication, while being titillated by more advanced topics like whip selection and master/slave contracts. --Regina Marler

    It begins with a secret."All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season."It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt.In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a "what if" can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.

    Jess Harper is so tired of being good…Thrust into the dazzle of Burlesque Bombshells, Vegas’s premier dance venue, the small town librarian has no option but to embrace her inner vixen.Especially when blast from her past, sexy Aussie celebrity chef Jack McVeigh is still determined to keep their relationship strictly hands-off.This time Jess isn’t surrendering without a fight and armed with her hot props and Bombshell moves, Jack doesn’t stand a chance.When Jess and Jack are sequestered on an island to orchestrate the burlesque wedding of the year, sun, surf and sizzling sex are on the menu!But will the fiery couple come back for seconds?

    He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.

    Now the video of that performance has been forwarded to mothers and daughters (and fathers and sons) all over the world. Originally written in 2007, "B" is a thank you note, a love letter, a wish, a promise, a confession, and a secret. With beautiful illustrations by Sophia Janowitz, "B" is finally available in this whimsical, magical book.

    Women were the last thing on her mind—her desire to focus on creating a life she loves coming before all else. Checking into a boutique hotel was easy…keeping her eyes off the astonishing woman on the balcony wasn’t. Businesswoman Prue Michaels has spent the last twenty years of her life improving it. Having survived a murky and painful past, she is quite satisfied putting her everything into her career. After all, it is what she does best. Now forty-seven, Prue is growing tired of the same old thing, day in and day out. When a new guest checks into her hotel, everything changes. For the first time in ten years, Prue believes she could be ready to love again. Both women must navigate life with one another around, but the pull is too hard to deny. Will insecurities cripple their prospects of a life together? Or will love ultimately prevail? Sexual tension. Sexual experience. Undeniable chemistry.

    The dangerously attractive Julian Scott is a highly successful entrepreneur and completely out of Emily’s league but she can’t ignore the invisible force that is drawing her closer to him, even when she sees the warnings that should have her fleeing.But Emily has a secret, a single dark act that resulted in her light – her daughter, Maia. With Emily still haunted by the memories of her past and Julian’s sexual intensity and need for control, the couple begin to question their compatibility.As Emily begins to adapt to her new life with Julian; her past threatens to tear the couple apart as her worst nightmares are in danger of becoming a reality. But, Julian isn’t going to stand aside to let that happen and his dark side reveals itself as he fights until the bitter end to protect what is his.An intense, erotic love story accompanied by tense drama and gripping suspense as Emily and Julian’s passion for one another becomes their only protection.

    He's still feeling the sting of Tlory, his last apprentice gone awry, but then an old friend shows up on his doorstep with a shy, brilliant, and horribly awkward student in tow, and he can't say no.Guylian seems to fit nowhere. The life he loved is forever gone, he is desperate to avoid a life he hated, and now his teacher in magic is turning him over to someone else, completely out of patience with him. He doubts his plans to become a proper mage, as magic seems to come with more trouble than he can manage. Still, he cannot bear to give up his last ties to the past, even if that means dealing with a teacher who is kind, patient, and too attractive for Guylian's peace of mind and the trouble stirred up by a certain former apprentice... ~Word count: 80,000 ~Pairing: M/M/M ~Content: Contains no explicit content.

    Georgia Young's wonderful life--great friends, family, and successful career--aren't enough to keep her from feeling stuck and restless. When she decides to make some major changes in her life, including quitting her job as an optometrist and moving house, she finds herself on a wild journey that may or may not include a second chance at love. Georgia’s bravery reminds us that it’s never too late to become the person you want to be, and that taking chances, with your life and your heart, are always worthwhile. Big-hearted, genuine, and universal, shows what can happen when you face your fears, take a chance, and open yourself up to life, love, and the possibility of a new direction.

    She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage — with rules.As if navigating the constantly shifting landscapes of contemporary sexual manners and racial politics weren’t hard enough, Edie finds herself unemployed and invited into Eric’s home — though not by Eric. She becomes a hesitant ally to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter. Edie may be the only Black woman young Akila knows.Irresistibly unruly and strikingly beautiful, razor-sharp and slyly comic, sexually charged and utterly absorbing, Raven Leilani’s Luster is a portrait of a young woman trying to make sense of her life — her hunger, her anger — in a tumultuous era. It is also a haunting, aching description of how hard it is to believe in your own talent, and the unexpected influences that bring us into ourselves along the way.

    But we can never know for certain, because what really goes on inside another’s head and heart is essentially a secret. How do you know if that secret is something that will hurt you? Your husband turns to face you in bed. Is he thinking about you or your closest friend? Your boss shows up in another new outfit. Did she get a raise or is she a compulsive shopper who is stealing money from the company? Your teenaged daughter is upstairs in her bedroom. Is she doing her homework or chatting online with a man twice her age? Anatomy of A Secret Life will take you inside the minds of secret-keepers and show you how secrets start, how they’re kept, and how they exact their devastating emotional and social toll. Using contemporary case studies and historical examples, Dr. Gail Saltz shows you how to spot—through subtle behaviors and clues—and safely stop the potentially dangerous secrets that someone, even you, might be concealing from the world.

    Again. Honestly, Eddie Goodman isn’t surprised. As the son of crime-fighting superheroes with no powers of his own, he’s used to living with a target on his back. Now, the League of Evil has him in their clutches once more. However, Eddie’s not familiar with this particular villain, whose name seems to echo the shadows he controls. Shadow isn’t as disgusting as the others, like the fiendish Duke Naughty who’s been after Eddie for a long time. With a master’s degree in Psychology, Eddie calls on his talent to analyze the mind of this new supervillain and finds he’s not so evil, just a little… dark.When Shadow saves Eddie from those intending him harm, blurring the lines between good and evil, Eddie realizes battling this new enemy—and his growing infatuation with the enigmatic man—won’t be easy. As Eddie struggles to understand Shadow’s motivations and his own feelings, he realizes Shadow is exactly the kind of Dominant he’d usually go for, and worse yet, Shadow seems to sense Eddie’s submissive nature. Eddie’s mind might not want to submit to a supervillain, but his body certainly does.

    Although some people regard fetish fashion as exploitative and misogynistic, others interpret it as a positive Amazonian statement--couture Catwoman. But the connection between fashion and fetishism goes far beyond a few couture collections. For the past thirty years, the iconography of sexual fetishism has been increasingly assimilated into popular culture. Before Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman, there was Mrs. Peel, heroine of the 1960s television show "The Avengers," who wore a black leather catsuit modeled on a real fetish costume. Street styles like punk and the gay "leatherman" look also testify to the influence of fetishism.The concept of fetishism has recently assumed a growing importance in critical thinking about the cultural construction of sexuality. Yet until now no scholar with an in-depth knowledge of fashion history has studied the actual clothing fetishes themselves. Nor has there been a serious exploration of the historical relationship between fashion and fetishism, although erotic styles have changed significantly and "sexual chic" has become increasingly conspicuous.Cultural historian Valerie Steele has devoted much of her career to the study of the relationship between clothing and sexuality, and is uniquely qualified to write this book. Marshalling a dazzling array of evidence from pornography, psychology, and history, as well as interviews with individuals involved in sexual fetishism, sadomasochism, and cross-dressing, Steele illuminates the complex relationship between appearance and identity. Based on years of research, her book Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power explains how a paradigm shift in attitudes toward sex and gender has given rise to the phenomenon of fetish fashion."Steele is to fetish dressing what Anne Rice is to vampires," writes Christa Worthington of Elle magazine, "the intellectual interpreter of...wishes beyond our ken." According to Steele, fetishism shows how human sexuality is never just a matter of doing what comes naturally; fantasy always plays an important role. Steele provides provocative answers to such questions as: Why is black regarded as the sexiest color? Is fetishizing the norm for males? Does fetish fashion reflect a fear of AIDS? And why do so many people love shoes?

    Over the past decade, she has gained international recognition for her room-sized tableaux, which depict historical narratives haunted by sexuality, violence and subjugation and are made using the paradoxically genteel eighteenth-century art of cut-paper silhouettes. Set in the antebellum American South, Walker's compositions play off of stereotypes to portray, often grotesquely, life on the plantation, where masters, mistresses and slave men, women and children enact a subverted version of the past in an attempt to reconfigure their status and representation. Over the years, the artist has used drawing, painting, colored-light projections, writing, shadow puppetry, and, most recently, film animation to narrate her tales of romance, sadism, oppression and liberation. Her scenarios thwart conventional readings of a cohesive national history and expose the collective, and ongoing, psychological injury caused by the tragic legacy of slavery. Deploying an acidic sense of humor, Walker examines the dialectics of pleasure and danger, guilt and fulfillment, desire and fear, race and class. This landmark publication, which is sure to win international design awards, accompanies Walker's first major American museum survey. It features critical essays by Philippe Vergne, Sander L. Gilman, Thomas McEvilley, Robert Storr and Kevin Young, as well as an illustrated lexicon of recurring themes and motifs in the artist's most influential installations by Yasmil Raymond, more than 200 full-color images, an extensive exhibition history and bibliography, and a 36-page insert by the artist.