Three-hundred years after the demise of Earth-that-Was, the
Galaxy’s central government has banned
all artificially modified and enhanced humans. Only the remote planet of
Cydonia has finally dissociated itself from the ban. The wild revelries of the
Black Carnival in the Cydonian capital, Neu Venedig, have now taken an even
wilder turn…
On the fifth night of the Carnival, Lukan strolled out of
his high walled courtyard, twirling his walking cane in the air and humming
Johan Caspar Ferdinand Fischer’s “Praeludium VIII” to himself. He had been
playing it on the harpsichord again and again that afternoon, and its slippery,
silvery perfection still clung to his inner ear like a haunting voice.
He crossed a little bridge into a narrow calle, then turned
right into a slightly wider canal-side, lit by glowing fire-bulbs and the
shimmering reflections from the dark water. The place was quiet, and the music
hummed on in his head, undisturbed. Even at the height of the festivities, it
was almost deserted in this part of Neu Venedig. He had carefully chosen his
16th century palazzo to be well out of the raving crowds.
He skipped from flagstone to flagstone along the edge of the
canal, almost like a child, almost like a dancer, following the music that he
alone could hear. The long tails of his embroidered coat flapped behind him as
if charmed by the inaudible melody. His ghostly shadow flickered in and out of
existence as he passed streetlight after streetlight.
It was Carnival, and he was going to Hell.
The Praeludium in his head gave way to an altogether more
spirited Rigaudon, and he skipped faster, actually counting, two, three,
four—he skipped a larger flagstone—five, six seven. Eight, nine, heaven.
Hopscotch. A forgotten game, like the music was forgotten,
like the harpsichord was forgotten, ghosts of a dead world, long, long ago. But
he was alive, and he remembered. He had been alive a long time, far longer than
his looks suggested.
The night was cold, and he was as taut as a violin string,
ready to snap with ache and longing, and something else, too, a sort of mute
grief he didn’t want to acknowledge but that haunted him all the time, subtly
gnawing at him.
But he was going to Hell, so all would be fine tonight.
Soon, he would be all right, freed from that silent sorrow, and released into
flaming brilliance.........
New Release!!
or at least, newly edited re-release
with this mouthwatering new cover by Jay Aheer
Twelve years after Ivory first visited the Black Carnival, Neu Venedig has changed: wilder, crazier, and even more surprising, this new Carnival has even old hands like Lukan staring wide-eyed.
I have bittersweet feelings about this story, which first
appeared in an anthology put together for the benefit of Doris O’Connor and her
family in the final days of her struggle with cancer. There will always be this
great sadness connected to it.
On the other hand, it was great fun to dive back into the world
of Cydonia, the Sci/fi series that started my published author career in 2011
(2011? Eight years ago? How did that happen?) with the release of Black
Carnival.
It’s a great pleasure to re-release the story, with a new
edit and this fabulous cover by Jay Aheer.
I am terrible at short stories, because my world building
addiction always brings me to write a bit more, and a bit more, and then the
short story becomes a full length novel. I thought it might be easier to write
a short story in a pre-existing universe, but, no even so, the world and the
characters still managed to do their own thing. Everything changed in the telling.
Neu Venedig is a wholly more interesting place now, and I am wondering if it is
not time to write a new full length instalment in this series… all this just to
say, that this story was a tremendous fun ride for me, quite the surprise, and
brings me full circle, in a certain sense, connecting my current Transgender
Romance theme, to my debut novel. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I
enjoyed writing it.
Blurb:
Wealthy, charismatic, influential and damn near immortal,
Lukan Løvensgård looks like natural Dom material, and in fact he has never, but
never submitted to anyone in his long life. But among all the bizarre and fantastic
people roaming the far planet of Cydonia, there is one who stole his old, cold
heart.
And her love comes at a price. Complete surrender.
With her impressive presence and unusual equipment, Helenay
is the hottest and trendiest professional Domme in Neu Venedig and she hardly
has the time to top for pleasure these days.
But she knows what her old friend Lukan needs, something he never
suspected. Release from power.
#transgendererotica #futanari
Excerpt:
He knew all her favorite toys by their sting, and the sound
they made when they met his flesh.
Helenay slapped the split strap of thick leather hard on his
buttocks and then down his thighs, in a neat crisscrossing pattern. She could
leave crisscross switch welts as neat as a corset’s lacing if she wanted. At
his knees, she stopped, and Lukan breathed deep. The sharp sting of the tawse
was pure fire, but it faded quickly enough. Still, his skin was now definitely
well primed for the real pain.
He breathed hard.
Hell placed a hand between his buttocks and stroked the edge
of his butt plug again and again, sending it to stroke his prostate, over and
over, while at the same time, gently pulling on the cord that tied his cock and
balls. He groaned, feeling waves of pleasure and the afterglow of pain mingling
in his flesh and in his brain, addling him. Soon he would hardly know the
difference between the two. He groaned again, not knowing anymore if he had
come for the pain she could give, or the pleasure she so often withheld.
Sometimes she would give both. Perhaps he would beg for it today.
Yes, he would certainly beg if he had to.
“Turn,” she said, and he let go of the wall, gingerly,
because his knees were soft. Her tawse was still in her hand, and from one end
of it, on a thin silk cord, hung a long suede tassel. Not quite a flogger, but
a vicious enough little thing, when one was standing naked with a swollen glans
reaching out, begging to meet that deceptive velvet kiss. He took a deep breath
and then gave a sharp gasp when the first soft swish of the tassel hit his
engorged cock. The suede was neither rough nor stiff, but his stretched,
blood-filled skin exploded in pain at its kiss. The pain was so close on top of
the pleasure he had been savoring a moment earlier that he could not quite tell
them apart. The almost-gentle, almost-intolerable flogging went on and on,
perhaps for only a few seconds, but he was jolting back at each blow, crying
out, whimpering. When she stopped and palmed his balls again, he actually
screamed, although she did nothing, just held them.
“You are so full of it today,” whispered Hell, seriously.
“It” was the
unbearable tension that mounted inside him between their encounters, as he knew
well.
“Why?” she asked.
He shook his head wretchedly. “I don’t know. Help me. Help
me, please.”
She sighed, and kissed his forehead for a long moment.
Moments like this, long or short, made his heart stop.
Neither he nor she were made for tenderness, really. And yet it materialized,
from time to time, out of the blue, unexpected, unexplained, often
unacknowledged. Half the time, they almost pretended that it hadn’t happened. A
secret they kept, even from themselves.
