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Craig J. Sorensen

Following the River

by | January 15, 2013 | | 10 Comments

By: Craig Sorensen

I’m a believer in cycles. 
My life has had many, and I have found great benefit in embracing them.  But there is a distinction to make when
considering cycles; they are not about a return to sameness, but a return to
familiarity under new circumstances.

I left Idaho in 1980 to join the Army, and returned in 1992
after my dad passed away.  Being with my
brother and my mother recaptured something familiar, but much was different.  I left Pennsylvania in 1989 and returned in
1995 to the same company I had worked for. 
They had changed, I had changed, and we all benefited from this in the
form of a 17 year relationship that finally ended because our desires and
objectives had become different.

I left the first home I had lived in June
1965 and returned there for the first time in July 2012.  My
memories of the place were surprisingly accurate, but my return taught me more
about the truths and fallacies of memory than any million words can say.

Last month, here at ERWA, I gave a concise recap of the
cycles that surround my love of storytelling. 
I’m not particular about the kinds of stories I tell, I only want them
to be good stories.  My entry into
erotica in 2006 was fueled by a warm reception to my work that I had not found
in other writing I had done.  And
make no mistake, I have gone down dozens of rabbit holes, both as an author,
and as a man, in the many explorations I have made in erotica.

I started this post with stating my belief in cycles.  But this does not assume fighting to go up
the river that was just exited.  Quite the
contrary, it is about finding the familiar in what is new, knowing that this
new river may be very different, but finding the sameness and growing from this
combination, and hopefully adapting.  Not
traveling the same river yet again, but ultimately understanding the nature of
rivers through experience.

And as much as I believe in cycles, I believe that life is a
river.  Some choose to fight the waves,
some choose to flow, some choose to get the fuck out and sit on the bank.  I choose to flow, and see what is around the
next bend.  Springs enter creeks, creeks
enter streams, streams enter rivers, rivers enter wider rivers, and eventually
you find the vastness of the sea.

I seek the sea.

One year ago to the day, I posted my first entry on this
blog.  That same day, I boarded a plane
to travel across the US, and landed in a new destination, at a job very
different than any I had known.  Six
months later, in mid 2012, I drove with my family across the US, including that
visit to the first home I had ever known.

And through it all, my belief in cycles and rivers has
grown.  Through it all, a long cycle has
been realized, as I resumed writing a series of stories that have emerged
slowly from my imagination since I was a boy growing up in Idaho.  In the meanwhile, I’m working as hard as I
ever have at my day job.  Somehow,
thirty-two years of business experience have come to focus like the sun through
a magnifying glass.  A spectrum of
business experience burns white hot, and I’m taking on challenges I never
thought I’d be doing.

I’m seeing life in ways I never saw before.

And so I have been forced to choose whether I want to flow
down the river, or return back up with many things.  There is always the temptation to return back
up the river, because though it might be tough to fight against the rapids,
there were many good things up that river.

Along this large, new river, there are the sparks of
familiarity.  But this river is flowing
fast, so I have to choose where to focus my energy to learn and keep up with
the nuances of the currents.

And I have made that choice.

As much as I have loved writing erotica, and as much as I
love those of you who I have met and gotten to know along the way, writing
erotica is something that is up the current from where I am.  Down current is the revitalization of a story
that I have developed and grown too many times to count.  The story, for now, is my most important work.    

And along the way, a job that makes my days go so fucking
fast that sometimes I can’t keep up.  A
couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to stand a situation like this,
but something in me was triggered, and now I’m lapping it up like a thirsty
young boy, drinking crystal water from a spring cascading down a rock.

And yes, that last description is a description from my
life.  A memorable moment about the value
of thirst, quenching, and the quality of water. 
A lesson about how water is cleansed as it flows.

Anyway, today it is one year since the day I first blogged
here, and one year since I went to take a new job out west, where I grew up as
a child.

Today is the end of a perfect cycle, and the perfect end to
bid a fond adieu to erotica.  It is the
perfect day to thank each and every one of you who read my stories along the
way, or were kind enough to follow my disjointed blog, which I will close down at the end of January.  It is a perfect
day to tell those of you I have met face to face, or exchanged emails with, how
much I appreciate what I have gained from you. 
I only hope I have somehow reciprocated.

Am I completely done with erotica?  If you think so, I ask you to reread this
post.

But for now, I take in where the river runs.  And I obey the power of the river.

I thank Lisabet Sarai for the opportunity to post to this
ERWA blog.  I thank all of my fellow
bloggers, truly a who’s who of erotica authors and a group I am honored to have
been a part of.

Craig J. Sorensen

January 15, 2013

The Crossroads Coming into View

by | December 15, 2012 | | 4 Comments

By: Craig J. Sorensen

In 1990, I started to write a book based on a fantasy world
that had rattled around in my head since I was a kid.  I finished over 100 pages, then the story
became disjointed.  I moved on to writing
other things.

I finished my first book in 1994.  It was
a modern fantasy, based on an uptight businesswoman who enters into a series of dreams,
each of which features a door where she can wish for something and will receive
it.  A sort of homage to the saying, “be
careful what you wish for, or you will surely get it.”  Actually, it was more about “be careful how
you wish for it.”  The dreams summarily
invaded further and further into her real life, and vice versa.

I tried to find an agent or publisher.  I had no writing credits whatsoever.  I only
tried a couple then slipped the book into a three ring binder and stashed it in
a box.  Truth was, the writing quality wasn’t
where it should be, and deep down, I knew that. 
I went back into poetry and short stories, which I had played with since
I had joined the Army in 1980.

Fast forward to 2004, and I returned to that story I’d start
in 1990.  Over the years since then, I’d come back
to the idea time and time again, written bits of it, built back stories and
character sketches, drew pictures and maps. 
I committed, January 1, 2004, to finish the first installment of the
trilogy I envisioned by the end of the year.

And I achieved that goal. 

I planned to find a publisher or an agent.  I didn’t actually submit to anyone, I just looked
hard enough to know that selling a novel about an imagined ancient world, a
story with no magical element to it, would probably be a hard sell, especially
for an entirely unpublished author.

And so I tried my hand at literary short stories.  I found some encouraging words, but to the
point, from one prospective editor, “you write really well, but your story
lacked vibrancy.”  It was a fair cop.  The stories I had been writing just didn’t
sparkle.

One nasty little story I had written among my literary
efforts sat off to the side, certainly no lit mag would want it.  Then my wife sent me a call she had seen.  Seemed that nasty story was a possible fit.  I sent out the story and had an acceptance
within 24 hours.  Never mind that the
magazine folded before the story was published. 
I was paid.  I was an author.

Seems I had a home in erotica.  I found my energy there.  Something in my writing filled in. The characters were more
lively, the settings and situations more vibrant.  A mountain I had seemed unable to climb
suddenly seemed more ascendable.  A
timely slowing of my duties at my day job left me my early waking hours to
devote to my writing, and the success I was experiencing in erotica spurred me on.

Fast forward to late 2011. 
I have around forty published short stories to my name and a couple of
completed books in the hopper, even more in the works.  I’ve hit almost every goal I set for myself
when I decided that I needed to get my “street cred” as a writer.  In truth, I’ve achieved some things I did not
anticipate.

Suddenly, a crossroads appeared in the windshield.

To be continued…

Cocaine Love

by | November 15, 2012 | | 4 Comments

By: Craig J. Sorensen

Recently, a good friend has been going through the sort of
relationship that has more pivot points than a double jointed hand with six
fingers.  It started before I left
Pennsylvania in June.  It ended before I
left in June.  Started again after I
left, ended again.  Started, ended… well,
you get the idea.

She’s a beautiful young woman, highly intelligent, very
creative, and successful in a field that is not easy to be successful in.  They have a lot in common, and just one or
two things where they differ.

But they are big things.

Each time relationship 2.0 and 3.0 and etc. ended, he gave
me a post mortem of how wonderful it felt when the relationship started, how
she was so understanding about his want to take it slow.  He described how quickly it changed toward
the end.  As he described the cycles in the most recent
release, it occurred to me what he was describing.  And maybe you’ve seen or felt it too:

Cocaine love.

When I described it in those terms to him, he practically screamed it out:  “That’s exactly what it is!”

Cocaine love:  Quick on the uptake, full of chemistry and biology and
euphoria.  More often than not this kind
of relationships end with an equally resounding crash.

Ultimately, each time this cocaine love began with her
accepting his position on a fundamental point. 
By the end, the actions spoke louder than words, and this flexibility fell away like a mask.  And the principle he
is operating on is one that really shouldn’t be asked to change.  Each time the relationship finished, he said how stupid he was, how he won’t get caught in that trap again.

Ahem.

It comes down to a person who will “give everything” if he
just “change one thing.”

But the essence of true love is not asking one to
change their fundamental principles, especially when they are the same core
values that make that person special. 
And that is the case here.

There are many things that can lead to a cocaine love, but
the bottom line is that it is hard to live on a steady diet of cocaine.  Maybe cocaine love can work, if both partners
are committed after the high wears off. 
And sometimes that means enduring the withdrawal.  Together.

The great relationships are like a fine meal.  Invigorating, and can be exciting, but
sustaining as well.  A good meal doesn’t
have the potential to emaciate the way that narcotics can.

Usually one person is the narcotic in a
cocaine love, while the other is deep in the high.

Again, this is not to say that a couple truly in love cannot
have an intense sort of desire, but there is a certain false-front that defines
cocaine love.  And the essence of being
able to see past it, is being willing to take a look at the relationship in
profile.

The essence is seeing the difference between being high and
being nourished.

I’ve used the dynamic of cocaine love in stories.  It makes great material, especially in erotica, but a lot better explored in fiction than lived through in life.

Just ask my friend.

Too Sexy or not to Sexy

by | October 15, 2012 | | 10 Comments

By: Craig J. Sorensen

I got the edits for a story soon to be published from one of
my favorite editors.  As expected, her
tweaks and tunes made sense, and readied this story for prime time.  She made some warm comments about specific
things, which I always appreciate.  A
busy editor does not have lots of time on her hands, and when she takes time to
make such a comment, that is a great compliment indeed.

But down deeper in the story, one comment:  “Nooooo! Not sexy!”

The line in question? 
“… fingers scattered like deformed spiders.”

Which begs the question, is there an idealized role of
sexuality in an erotic story?  I know,
this is a slippery slope, and there are as many opinions as there are readers
and writers of erotica.

I often toy with strange images.  To some extent, I do this to create tension,
and to some extent, I do this to provide depth to the sexual imagery.  But, in doing this, I risk taking the reader
out of the erotic mindset that stories in the genre are usually expected to do.

Yes, some of the things I write come from strange places.  I’ve had a few similar edits at other times,
and I understand where the editors are coming from.  When a story goes into a collection, it needs
to fit the theme and the vision of the editor. 
 I’m not bothered by spiders, but
I do know that this is a serious squick for some.  With that in mind, I see her point.  The descriptive was not absolutely essential
to the story, but I liked it because it gave a sense of contrast, and
illustrated the protag’s perspective on the character he was thinking about.  In the end, I had no problem with the removal
of this “not sexy” descriptive.

I love writing erotica because it challenges social taboos,
just by being explicit, but within the genre, I like to challenge as well.  Taking chances is what I do.  Editors will probably continue to trap and
consume my odd images that go too far in their web.

I guess it’s all in the game.  Works for me.

A Dramatic Pivot Point

by | September 15, 2012 | | 7 Comments

By: Craig Sorensen

“We’re you just going to leave without saying goodbye?”

“I just haven’t had time, it’s been crazy trying to get this cross-country move this together.”

“Yeah, I know, but I gotta bust on you.”

Yes, he did.  He had for over a quarter of a century.  He busted on me about work, busted on me about home, delivered digs with a serious face, but once I got to know him, I learned to read his eyes.  He was a curmudgeon, even when we first met and we were young men.

Truth was, in a way, he remained young, despite his hair, graying and receding as it did over the years.  He was in amazing shape, even on this day when I was loading crap into the POD for the cross-country move, and he rode up on his trusty bicycle.

He complained about things, but he worked his ass off as hard as anyone I knew.  When another member of his team trashed an important disk drive on a Friday and brought the system I supported to its knees, G was in all weekend working to recovering the lost data.  It was not an easy job, and for a time it looked like I’d have to work my ass off to rebuild from scratch.  My stomach was in my throat at the thought.

But he got the job done.  Come Monday, you wouldn’t have known the near catastrophe that befell our system.

He called me once from Colorado during one of his biking trips to check on a problem that had occurred.  He was on vacation, but he wanted to be sure everything was okay, and he’d found a small pocket of cell reception in his cross country ride.  I told him we had it in hand.   “Okay, call me if you need me.  I’ll be checking in.”

He was always there for people.  He was always checking in.  Give you the shirt off his back.  He’d say things like “I don’t give a shit.”  But he always did, when it came down to it.  He had a great sense of humor.  His smiles were usually small and wry, occasionally opening briefly into a wicked apex.  His eyes had a constant gleam in them, even in the worst of times.

I didn’t know a person who knew G that didn’t like him.

Monday, he wrote me an email.  My former employer, his present one, was having a problem with a set of files I used to maintain, and no one could figure it out.  Often, when that happened, they’d turn to G.  “I don’t have a clue,” he wrote.  I explained about the files and what had been done to fix them in the past.

“Thanks,” he wrote back simply.

Tuesday, at lunch, he went to work out.  They say he passed out, and they could not revive him.  Later that afternoon, a second heart attack and G was gone.

Some might say it was ironic that he worked out pretty much every day of his life, and he died so suddenly, working out.  But I know that the only way he would rather have gone would have been on the back of his bike, somewhere between there and here, taking pictures of dead skunks on the road which he would use as wallpaper on his PC at work, or perhaps running into the ice cold ocean in January with a group of crazies, only to emerge with one of those twisted smiles, and have his picture taken with his arm around an attractive young woman he didn’t know know, but just asked if she’d pose with him.

She was grinning too.

It is now 2500 miles between me and where he died, and it was all so sudden.  I could not make it to the service, but I asked a friend to tell me how it went.  “Craig, it was more like a block party than a memorial.  There were people lined up outside on the sidewalk.”

And that was how it should be.

G was a good man, a good friend, a good coworker, and he left this plane far too soon for my taste.

Less than 24 hours before his death, his last word to me in an email:  “Thanks.”

I wish I’d had a chance to thank him.

G was the sort of man a fiction writer wishes they could craft.  The gold-standard of character.  Funny as hell, smart as a whip, determined, vital and vibrant and alive every day he was on this earth, and complaining all the way.  Did I say good man?  No, he was great.

Truly great.

I had started a story about a week before I got word of his passing, and central to the plot was dealing with death.  Perhaps there is some significance to this timing, I’ve found that life and fiction have a way of merging.  But fiction is always fiction, and life is always life.  Finding a center ground is where the magic happens, methinks.  That short story I started has since expanded to be a novella.  I continue to work on it, with love, and with passion.

My contribution to this blog is about pivot points, and there are no greater ones than how life begins, and how it ends.

Well, maybe I’m wrong about that one.  There is this big-assed middle part to tend to, and I suppose that is what makes those beginnings and ends so significant.

That is where character is formed and proofed.

I miss you, G.   Thank you for living, and for inspiring me in so many ways.  Thank you for sharing your bigger-than-life character.

The Change you Missed

by | August 15, 2012 | | 6 Comments

Chances are, if you ever drank to get drunk, once or twice you’ve drank to the point of regret.  I certainly have.  It’s a terrible feeling to awaken to the knowledge that you’re not where you usually expect to be, then wonder what transpired.

The little story that follows tells of such a situation, and a surprising outcome, and through it all, a change in a life, or at least the possibility of one.

Stop, Slow, Stop, Slow

©  Craig J. Sorensen

You promised yourself it would never happen again.  Promised that you’d soothe your restless mind
in another way.  Promised you never again
wake up in . . . well

It looks like a doublewide, at least a quarter century old.  Neat as a pin, but showing its wear.  A train comes by so close, you can feel it in
your ass.

She’s turned away, a sheet over her jackhammer frame, and
you work to recall her face, but the dryness in the mouth and mammoth need to
piss are the only indication of what went on last night.  You remember, bit by bit, the bar you
migrated to starting at a classy pub downtown, just a stone’s throw from work.

You recall the bars, descending strata.  Never happy where you are, move on.  You lose count.  You wish you could remember.

You check the floor, expecting underwear next to the bed,
socks half way across the room, t shirt in the door, the rest an ant crumb
train to the front door, you do it like this. 
Impatience and passion, yes, but also it makes for an orderly retreat.  Step, clothe, step, clothe, step, clothe
until the door closes gently in your wake.

So unlike you, the neat stack of clothes on the Samsonite
chair, a suit and tie, t-shirt, underwear, socks, and her threadbare jeans and
tank top over the back.  What a pair you
two must have been when you left that last bar.

Birds’ songs ascend as the train rumbles its last.

She stirs. 

You freeze, knowing that she’s at that state where your
jostling the old bed will probably wake her. 
You lay still as a worm thrust from the ground by a sudden rain, the
caught in a cymbal crash of sun.  She
turns in profile, still sleeping.

A little more haze lifts, and you recall later last night, pool
played in a dive bar.  A girl who said
she held up construction signs on road repairs. 
Stop, slow, stop slow.  She beat
you at nine ball again and again.  Not a
thing about her was your kind of woman, and you wonder how you got here, no
matter how much you drank, no matter how deep your need.  And that need was deep last night.

That much you remember clearly.

She sighs, and you start to get hard.  Surprise at how you respond after what must
have passed last night.  Your desire is
deep, like it was before you left the office, maybe even more.  It is not the predictable drained sensation
steeped in regret that takes form when reason and cottonmouth set in.

You are harder. 
Harder.  It actually starts to
hurt.  Piss boner.  That’s it.

But you want her, want her bad.  You shouldn’t, especially when you already
had her.  Especially when she’s so . . .
so . . . so wrong.

She casts the sheet aside and shows off her muscular body.  You try not to look at the golden pubic hair
and note the way her knurled knuckles rub there.  Her eyes are on you, her lips are smiling as
her gaze drains down to the tent between your legs.  “Mornin’.”

“Hey.”

Her fingers slide under the covers, up your thigh, and
cradle your balls.  The cool of her hands
is perfect, both soothing and exciting. 
“I’m glad you suggested we wait until the morning.”

Probably couldn’t get it up. 
As much as you drank . . .

Those cool hands join forces, one on your balls, the other
stroking your rod.  “Seem’s you’re glad
we waited too, but I must say, I never had so much fun just hanging out and
talking.  Especially when I was as horny
as I was last night.  And falling asleep
with that hard cock against my back?  Amazing!  Don’t know how you could stand it, but it
made me hot.”

“Uh, yeah, uh, that was great.”  You’re pretty sure you mean it.  You do know, that, as morning after regrets
go, not remembering what you talked about is a first.

She smooths the pre come that has drooled
into her hand up and down your shaft. 
Licks it, with a smile, from her palm like a cat cleaning herself.  She opens her body.  “God, I can’t wait to feel you in me.”  Her fingers feel perfect as she rolls a
rubber down your shaft.

You position between her thighs and savor her slick
walls.  She gives a huge, deep,
resounding, toe curling, lip stretching, jaw cracking sigh. 

You nearly come instantly. 
You’re glad when she says.  “Just hold
still so I can feel it all.”  You stay
still until the come that threatened to escape eases back.  You need to come, you need to piss, you need water, you need to
eat.

You need to breathe.

But you don’t do any of them.  You obey. 
You only obey.  Never your strong
suit, yet you do it well.  Buried to the
balls in her, and yet you push tighter, and are met with an approving grunt.  It’s strangely tender, strangely rough,
painful and yet you don’t want it to end. 
Your arms around her back, your legs entwined in hers.  Still and full of need.

It is Saturday, your day to rush around and get things done at home.  Well, every day is a day to rush around, you’re never stay
still, never patient.  So many reasons to
rush, and really, do you need one?

But your bodies begin to move together.  Slow, stop, slow, stop, she seems to turn
that construction sign, and you obey. 
You are happy, strangely happy.

“God yes, you feel so good in me,” she whispers in your ear.

Slow, stop, slow, stop, you listen to her breaths, her moans
her sighs as they ascend to a strangely gentle orgasm like a refined lady
sneezing.  Bad as your needs are, they are
superseded by the need to bring her another, see if you can make her writhe and
come like a grenade.

And you do, pounding hard in her, but slowly, slowly
ascending, your balls are hard as a wrecking ball.  You don’t want to come, but your body won’t
listen, and you shoot so hard in the rubber you feel you must have burst it.

She unfurls the rubber, and lets you go to the bathroom
first.  While she cleans up, you could
leave.  You look back at the bed.  Looks nice, and you lie down and wait for
her.

Waiting, not your strong suit.  Glad when she comes to bed, and curls up
against you.  “Mind if I stay a little
longer?”  You ask.

“I was kind of hoping you would.”

You wonder how long it might be, and for once, you don’t
worry about it being too long.

Pivot Points, the Sequel

by | July 15, 2012 | | 6 Comments

Six months ago, to the day, I made my first post to the ERWA
blog.  It introduced the idea I wanted to
follow, keying on a theme of pivot points.

Six months ago, to the day, I was flying high above the
earth, bound for a new job after 27 years with the same company.  A big pivot point in my life, methinks, and
ultimately a big pivot point for all of the members of my family.  That day, January 15, 2012, my wife and I
landed in the Bay area and set out to look at potential houses.

Six months ago, to the day, I wondered what the future would
bring.

Today, the future is in full swing.  Since that post, my life has been
a whirlwind.  Selling one house, buying
another.  Learning a new technology and
new business concepts.  Working many
hours watching a new company grow far faster than I could have imagined, almost
the exact opposite of the direction the company I was working for was going.

Today, July 15, 2012, I sit in a house in the western US, not far from the home I grew up in,
thousands of miles from where I lived just a couple of weeks ago, and a few
hundred miles left to go to start a new life in a new city.  We have driven cross country, and all the
while, I have kept working.

The one thing that has suffered in this long pivot point has
been my writing.  It is not that I
haven’t been writing, it is that I haven’t been writing as much as I’m
accustomed to.  It is that I am not
writing the things I have written in recent times leading up to this pivot
point.

I tend to believe this will be a good thing, and that all
the other changes in my life, the new experiences I am going through at the age
of 52 will leave me with fertile soil to till new stories.

But I can’t worry about that now.  Now all I can worry about is the here and the
now.  Now, all I can do is navigate the
many changes the best that I can.

Pivot points are like that. 
They demand your attention.  They
demand your focus.  Soon the dust will settle on this pivot point, and I’ll find my way back to the familiar, but there a miles of road left to travel.

I’ll catch you on the the other side next month.

Become the Ball by Craig Sorensen

by | June 15, 2012 | | 6 Comments

I’ve watched tennis for years.  I like the sense of sparring, and the unique combination of power and beauty that it embodies.  I watch all the majors:  The Australian Open, The US Open, Wimbledon, and Roland Garros (aka the French Open.)

Of course, being an author, anything I watch can be fodder for a story or a poem, and late in May, as Roland Garros was in full swing, I was watching the women’s early rounds.  One player started strong, then began to falter, but through determination, she won it in three sets.  Her transformation, the sense of determination, the way she took charge as her game became more intense.  I love that kind of game, and my mind wandered, wandered to a man watching the same thing; a man who has been searching, trying to find what he wants in a woman.  Maybe a vanilla sex young man who lives an orderly, gentle life and knows something is missing.  Knows some stirrings, some cravings come to
him, but does not know how to express them. He sees something in the tennis player’s determination, and her frustration which becomes focus.  He admires her power and becomes even more fascinated.

Epiphanies come in strange ways.

Becoming the Ball  ©2012 Craig J. Sorensen

I want to marry a tennis player.  Perky, tactile nipples poke through bra and pastel pink top.  Her moves across the court, a dance, she looks so playful as she wins the first set so handily.  The second set is no picnic.  She struggles, fights, but ultimately loses, and as the third set starts, bright white teeth nearly puncture her lower lip.

Man she looks pissed. I lean forward, feel a bit of heaviness down low.   My eyes turn to her racket.  I absorb the grace in her swing.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like it as her strokes get stronger.  Long
thighs, thick in negotiating the court, flex. Her biceps are grainy and shapely. At the point of impact, the pop of the tennis ball, my testicles get tight.

Her voice is not longer giving up soft, gentle grunts.  It explodes, deep and hard on a wicked forehand.  It is even louder on the two fisted backhand.  The ball grazes the line.  She wins the point, pumps her fist.

I am hard.

Most every ball falls inside the court, until she regains control of the match.  She taunts with
some serve and volley.  The wind up of a power stroke that results in an unexpected dropshot.  I whimper in the surprise, and the next shot is full power with no backswing.  I scream out.  My ass feels suddenly as hot as an iron.  I want it to feel hotter.

Why did it never occur to me before, how much I need a tennis player?  A golfer won’t do.  As good as it sounds to lie in the rough, or get caught in a sand trap, and as much as I might pull out a one wood to do her
bidding, let’s face it, a pitching wedge and a putter just aren’t the same.

No basketball player for me. Who wants free throws, tip offs and lay ups?

Maybe a hockey player? A slap shot sounds promising, but I’m not sure I could handle the icing.

No, I need a tennis player who strings her racket tightly.  A woman who wins well, but loses badly.  A woman who bumps me deliberately in the change over.  “You’re going down in this set,” she says with a laugh, still looking sweet and pretty as a princess.

Of course, I’ll struggle every time out on the court, and yes I’ll win a point or two.

Long may she win the matches.

Collision

by | May 15, 2012 | | 8 Comments

By: Craig Sorensen

Collisions happen. 
Sometimes they are fatal, sometimes they are life changing.  Sometimes they are just a tiny space in time.

Perhaps a space that will be as easily forgotten as it
occurred.

In my prior job, the corporate offices were in a building
constructed on a former pier that jutted out into the Hudson River.  Standing at one end, looking to the other,
could look like a three mile walk.

Naturally a fast walker myself, this could lead to a
less-than-appropriate pace.

One day, I was late for a meeting on the Manhattan end, a
woman stepped around the corner from the endless cube farm down the middle of
the building at just the wrong time.

No one was hurt in the collision, but I did feel awful about
running into her, and she was rightfully pissed at me, but the rapidity that
her expression softened stuck in my head.

It was no more than three seconds in my half-century of life,
an inconsequential moment, certainly not a pivot point in my life.  It might well have been forgotten if my
fiction writing mind hadn’t taken firm hold of the idea and begun to turn it
over.

I wrote the formative ideas for the below not too long after
the collision, then set it aside.  I came
back to it, changed it, shifted it and grew it. 
Could it really work into a story someone might like to read?  I don’t know; this was what came
out.  I guess this was a flash fiction
exercise in “iceberg writing.”  Not
really a story itself, I built it on the idea of these two people, and set out
to illustrate them in tiny fragments of a single moment where they crossed,
showing only their gut reactions to an event, and hinted at a future.

Collision, ©2012 Craig J.
Sorensen

It seems this building has no end.  Narrow aisles like ladder steps, the
crossbars occupied by the oblivious staff members of our most recent
acquisition. 

A Nevada desert road stretches to infinity.

No terrain.  No
rain.  My meeting is at the far end,
somewhere up there.  Ledger sheets will
lead to decisions that will affect the lives of every face that lies behind the
nameplates along the hall.  Nameplates I’ve
never bothered to read.  I turn my
wrist.  My steps lengthen and pound a
fast rhythm.

My arms rise in reflex, one hand braces on a wool clad hip,
the other arm steadies a narrow waist. 
Full breasts cushion my ribs like airbags deploy on collision.

“Bastard!”  I don’t
know the flower in her perfume; her breath is cayenne.

My voice goes up two octaves like a knee to the nuts.  “Goddamn!”

Juicy tears dangle from both sides of her chin.  Did I do that?  I grope for an apology.  Her pinpoint pupils are a tiny dot in a field
of cobalt – the cold winter sun through an old bottle.  Her porcelain skin gleams against the black
business suit, jacket half way on, her arms are suspended mid frame,
helpless.  Helpless.  I should ease away from her respectfully.

Astaire and Rogers wait for the music to start, but the
ensuing silence is more like the Novocain on an abscessed tooth.  We remain, frozen.  Her hand gathers my pink dress shirt into a
tight fist.  Her hip presses slightly
forward into the hasty embrace.

I release her.  “I’m
really am sor—”

“You should watch where you’re going.”  Her words are a whisper.  She gently pats my heart.  Her pupils widen, suddenly black as a
mourner’s dress.  Her nicked, thick
wedding band reflects the endless row of fluorescent tubes above.

“God, I am really sorry, Ms, um . . .”  I lift my brow.

She sniffs hard, pulls back, finishes putting on her coat
and wipes both cheeks.  “Huddleston.  I—me too. 
I didn’t mean it—I shouldn’t have called you—a—I mean, that.”  She smiles then continues in the opposite
direction.

I savor the last hints of her scent and my sudden, rare, ripe
guilt.  I look back and watch her walk
away.  She doesn’t look back.  Her pace looks angry, faster than my pace
when I ran into her.

I turn my popcorn hard on, something I regret almost as much
as asking her name, to twelve O’clock.  “Well
I am.  A bastard, that is, Ms
Huddleston.”  I say too quiet for anyone
to hear.  “Usually I am.”  I am late for my meeting, but walk slowly, and consider.

Cycle Back, Move Forward

by | April 15, 2012 | | 7 Comments

By: Craig J. Sorensen

Easter Sunday 2012, and I rested.

I’ve been working a lot lately and we’re still elbow deep in getting ready to move cross-country. But, little by little, I have found my way back into writing. In the last few weeks I worked on a short story for a submissions call. It was just a matter of sitting down to the story and finishing it. I could have done it Easter Sunday. The story was close to completion.

I rested, and remembered Easter morning eight years ago. It was a beautiful morning. A glowing sunrise ignited the budding trees in orange. Eight years ago, I had committed myself to writing regularly by working on a story I had started to develop in my youth, and worked on over the years. I had committed to finish this novel by the end of 2004, and by Easter I was going strong. I wrote a scene that day that I still remember: Both the scene and the writing of it.

Later that year, I finished the book, not erotica per se, though like most of the stories I write, there was erotic content. When it was done, I didn’t know where to go with it. It didn’t really fit the markets, and I was a total unknown as an author.

Momentum carried, I continued to write with an eye to getting published, and a natural taste for exploring things erotic emerged. A quick acceptance of a twisted short story, and I found a home here, in erotica. One thing led to another: Numerous short stories published and challenges taken, meanwhile I continued to write longer works.

Turns out, when it comes to getting published, I’ve had greater fortune with short works than novels.

To be fair, I haven’t submitted much of my novel length work. There are a number of publishers out there, but so many of them want romance. I like romantic elements, but my longer stories don’t qualify as romance. There are indeed publishers who accept erotica without romance, but often with a different rider: fantasy, horror, cuckold, etc. I don’t fit there either.

On the other hand, some publishers put out three titles a week. Click on the list of authors, and there are hundreds. I’m not a number.

Still, when I look at it truthfully, my home is novels. I commit to the long novels. I love the act of intertwining multiple characters, love the devotion to editing the work, finding problems and fixing them. Improving, growing.

I’ve been married thirty-one years, and my last day job lasted twenty-six.

Getting my short stories published over the last few years has brought me great joy. There is a more immediate satisfaction, and maybe there is a safety net in sharing the table of contents with talented authors and editors like Ashley Lister, Donna George Storey, Jean Roberta, Kathleen Bradean, Kristina Wright, Lisabet Sarai, Lucy Felthouse, M. Christian, Remittance Girl and others.

I’m sure I will continue to write short stories from time to time, but what I accepted on Easter morning is that I am a novelist at heart, even if it is hard for me to find a publisher that I feel excited about, and who feels strongly about what I write.

Between that Easter 2004 and Easter 2012, I have learned so much about writing. In the end, that book I finished back then wasn’t ready for publication, and so I’m glad I’ve taken the path that I did. I still feel passionate about the story and the characters from that book, so, for now, I’m going back to it, while I continue to look for a home for an erotic novel I finished in 2011, another novel I had worked on for years.

Two books that don’t seem to fit the current markets. Seems that is one thing I do consistently.

Somewhere down the road, I will find homes for my books, and I hope I’ll find a readership. Until then, I write.

For now, I’ll write them long.

Hot Chilli Erotica

Hot Chilli Erotica

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