A Succubus for Valentine's Day is now available in print book version

This post was supposed to go out yesterday, but the best-laid plans and all that...

This book has a bit of a cursed history. Amazon has various automated checks to make sure somebody isn't ripping off an existing book. So what tends to happen is my attempts to republish the books under my own author account get flagged as infringing the copyright of my books when they were previously published with eXcessica. This is usually easy to resolve as I have signed documentation from eXcessica to revert the rights back to me after they closed down.

Except for this book, for some reason...

I had a hellish fight trying to get the ebook out in 2022. I just ended up with the wrong people on Amazon's Kindle Content Review team and it took a while to find someone that wasn't an idiot to resolve the problem.

I'm getting the same flags come up now I'm putting out print versions. For A Succubus for Christmas it was resolved within 10 minutes. I sent the same reply and documentation back for A Succubus for Valentine's Day, and nothing...

Given the fight I had to get the ebook out, I was dreading having the same problems.

Thankfully, it seems to have resolved, albeit taking about 36 hours rather than 10 minutes.

A Succubus for Valentine's Day is now available, again, as a physical print book for the first time in a few years. With a lovely, if extremely deceptive :D, new cover courtesy of Marwmellow. I've also updated the ebooks on Amazon and elsewhere to use the new cover (except Smashwords, as I still need to properly merge it with my Draft2Digital account).

I've tried to keep the price as low as possible, but Print-on-Demand paperbacks are unfortunately more expensive to produce than mass-market paperbacks, so the lowest I could drop it was $15.99. It is at least now an option if people want a physical copy for their bookshelf.

(With a very innocent-looking cover to properly traumatize anyone reading the first story by mistake. :D )

You can find it on Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GNH6K3G6

I hope you enjoy it and happy Valentine's Day!

Coming Soon - "A Succubus for Valentine's Day" in Print

I received the print proof for the new print version of "A Succubus for Valentine's Day" with new cover art by marwmellow.

Looks fine. I'll be making that available to purchase on Amazon roughly around Friday 13th Feb (depending on when it goes live). Look out for more on that next week.

I'm going to be traumatizing romance readers again with that cover, aren't I...

A Succubus for Valentine's Day is out! (sort of)

 My 2nd collection, "A Succubus for Valentine's Day and other tales of Perilous Pleasures" is now out (sort of).

Here is the obligatory blurb:

Alluring, exotic, delectable, sexy... dangerous.

M. E. Hydra returns with a second collection of thirteen sizzling stories featuring seductive succubi, amorous aliens and other sexy femme fatales.

“A Succubus for Valentine’s Day” shows the perils of letting a succubus play cupid.  Two tourists discover a dark secret lurking in Amsterdam’s red light district in “Venus of the Red Lights”.  In “Knight vs Succubus”, a knight battles for his life and soul against a cunning and seductive demon.  A man finds out his pleasure planet of blue-skinned alien babes is not as it seems in “The Spiders of Thomisoidus”.  And finally, a young man has a very special date in “A Summer Dance with a Succubus”.

You will be enthralled, aroused, and terrified in equal measure by these and other tales of wicked, sensual predators.  They’ll give you pleasures beyond your wildest dreams, and terrors beyond your darkest nightmares...

This is my second collection of short stories, first published in 2011 through Excessica. I've republished it with a new cover and afterword (and a thorough editing pass to fix anything I missed the first time around). 

You can find it at

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/a-succubus-for-valentine-s-day

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-succubus-for-valentines-day-me-hydra/1141813683?ean=2940166601001

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/a-succubus-for-valentines-day/id6443171589

It should also have updated at Smashwords, but check the preview first to make sure you're getting the updated version (the copyright page should mention cover art by Wombo AI and a 2nd edition date of 2022, which should indicate it's the correct version):
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/41826

I also uploaded it to Google Play this morning, so it should go live there in a couple of days.  Check my author page:
https://play.google.com/store/books/author?id=M.E.+Hydra

Where it isn't currently available, sadly, is Amazon.  I'm working on it and hopefully will have it available at some point, but I'm having to deal with staggering levels of incompetency from Amazon KDP's support department.  I'll put up a post describing my 'experiences' in full grisly details in a few days.  Kafka-esque nightmare doesn't even begin to cover it.

UPDATE: The problems at Amazon appear to have been resolved.  You can now find it there as well:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B8487XQ6

Story Inspiration - A Succubus for Valentine's Day

As I said in a previous post, to mark the rerelease of my ebook short story collections I want to add a section at the end with behind-the-scenes notes.  So, if you have any questions about story/characters/inspiration, fire away below.  It'll likely be something I hadn't considered and would therefore be good to add in that section.

Today we'll be looking at "A Succubus for Valentine's Day".

Here is the running order for that collection:

1) A Succubus for Valentine's Day
2) Initial Infiltration
3) The Succubus Heart Squad**
4) Puffed Up*
5) The Spiders of Thomisoidus*
6) Delivery Special Soap
7) Knight vs Succubus
8) Interrocution
9) Crushed Between Her Breasts
10) Venus of the Red Lights
11) The Soul Worm
12) Foam Shower*
13) A Summer Dance with a Succubus

* Exclusive to this collection

** This was the 1st chapter of Succubus Summoning 101 in the original collection.  Back then there was a minor gold rush of people rushing to self publish on Amazon's kindle platform and some less scrupulous people were ripping stories off places like Literotica to publish under their own name.  I'd already had someone try to swipe the Succubus Summoning series a year earlier for a smaller fan-writing site, so included the 1st chapter of SS101 in this collection (which was originally written as a standalone short story) as a form of pre-emptive copyright protection.  Now that Succubus Summoning 101 exists as its own book, that isn't necessary, so I'm planning to replace it with the appropriately Valentine's Day themed "The Succubus Heart Squad".

Fire away with questions below.  I did get distracted for a while at the start of the year, but I am hoping to get these collections back up on Amazon ASAP.

Hydra's Inspiration - A Succubus for Valentine's Day (part 3)

This is a look behind the scenes at how the stories of my second collection, A Succubus for Valentine's Day, came to be.  The first part is here.


Venus of the Red Lights

I’ve visited Amsterdam a few times and De Wallatjes (better known as the main red light district) is an evocative location for a horror story.  In fact this idea is a leftover from my days when I tried to write “normal” horror.  Most of the non-supernatural elements of this story are based on firsthand experience or stories I’d heard.


The Soul Worm

I have no idea where the monster girl from this one came from.  They bubble up from the depths of my imagination every so often and I think it’s best not to pry further.

At the end is a blink-and-you’ll miss appearance of a character you’ll see more of in the future.


Foam Shower

This is the follow-up to “Bubble Bath”.  The unusual succubus from that is just as pleasant to share a shower with as she is with sharing a bath.  Sadly, those pleasures are invariably fatal, but we can’t have everything.


A Summer Dance with a Succubus

One of the pleasures of writing is when a story comes together and all of the elements slot neatly into place.  I’d read a few articles about sex workers who provided services to disabled persons who would otherwise not experience the pleasures of sexual intercourse.  This was something I could see my “good” succubus escort character, Nicole, doing.  I also needed a story for a summer-themed contest and one of the things about summer is it’s ephemeral – all summers end to be swallowed by the dark and cold of winter.  Some lives are also tragically short and ephemeral.  But rather than obsess over the coming cold and dark, we enjoy the sunshine and long lazy days while they last.  And life is no different.  That’s how I pictured Terry – proud and defiantly making the best of an unfortunate hand.

This was the first of my stories to place in the Literotica contests and I used the money from that to buy a Kindle from Amazon.  It’s still one of my favourites to this day.


I hope you've enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at how some of my stories came to be.  I'll do the same for A Succubus for Halloween at some point in the future.

Hydra's Inspiration - A Succubus for Valentine's Day (part 2)

This is a look behind the scenes at how the stories of my second collection, A Succubus for Valentine's Day, came to be.  The first part is here.


The Spiders of Thomisoidus

I’m not entirely sure where this came from.  Spiders and silk work well with bondage fantasies and a planet full of sexy babes is a classic sci-fi fantasy.  Also the intro allowed me to have fun with a character bemoaning his lot after being suckered into taking a contract on a pleasure world that doesn’t really live up to expectations.  The teasing, stop-start nature of the sex scene was also highly pleasurable to write.


Delivery Special Soap

This is another story to indulge my fetish for soapland-style mat play.  It’s heavily influenced by Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s Wicked City (anyone who’s seen the anime will know the scene).  I was starting to think about how my story universe worked and how the various monster girl demons interacted with each other.  As the demons are operating under a kind of masquerade, it made sense for them to have rules to prevent the sort of overt conflict that would attract the attention of the human authorities.  It also made sense that Inari would know how to work these rules to her advantage and by including a reference to her I could also hint at a larger story taking place beneath these short stories.


Knight vs. Succubus

This story has an interesting tale behind it.  I was asked by a developer working on a succubus game to write a story that would help publicise the finished game (sadly, I don’t think it was ever finished).  My first attempt was this story, which was rejected for being too dark.  I liked the story and then had an idea for another loosely connected series of “X vs Succubus”.  The connection is largely restricted to the title.  This is a much darker tale than the tongue-in-cheek “Slayer vs Succubus”.  It’s also one of the few times I’ve felt guilty about offing the protagonist.


Interrocution

I think the initial idea was a cocky criminal bound to a chair and at the mercy of a succubus.  I like blending gritty mob tropes with supernatural elements.  The story is also a fitting introduction to Koontz’s right hand “man” – Physalia.  She’s a much colder and fearsome succubus.  As Koontz’s enforcer she’s definitely not to be messed with.

The title is a mashup of interrogation and execution.


Crushed Between Her Breasts

This story came about through an impromptu challenge contest on the Literotica forums.  The theme was revenge stories if I remember correctly.  I had the idea of a chauvinistic IT manager annoying one of his female workers to the point where they seek external help to teach him a lesson.

Oddly, the double team of Eryx and Eunectis are also part of my recurring roster of characters, although readers wouldn’t know it as those stories are still waiting to be published.  Nancy’s debt is still outstanding . . .


I'll post the last part on the remaining stories tomorrow.

Hydra's Inspiration - A Succubus for Valentine's Day (part 1)

This is another post where I go over where some of my stories come from.  Last time up I went through my first collection, A Succubus for Christmas.  This time I'll run through A Succubus for Valentine's Day.

There might be a few spoilers for people that haven't already read the stories.


A Succubus for Valentine’s Day

When it comes to Valentine’s Day I’m a bit of a black-hearted curmudgeon.  Most of the stories I’ve entered into Literotica’s Valentine’s Day contests have been anti-Valentine’s Day tales of some description.  It was while trying to think of an entrant I hit upon the idea of re-using the nameless succubus from “A Succubus for Christmas”.  This then became an idea for a (semi) regular series featuring her, the succubus tablet and various themed days.  In this story she’s playing a similar role to before – the evil genie that gives her poor victim what they think they want . . . until they actually get it.

I did get some comments misinterpreting Kurtzberg as a ‘nice guy’.  Admittedly, I did set the story up to present him in a sympathetic light, and maybe fool the reader into thinking this might be one of those romcoms where the unfortunate slob ends up with the pretty girl after all.  Then the story takes a turn into murkier territory until it culminates in what I hope is a gut punch of an ending (as every good anti-Valentine’s Day story should have).  Kurtzberg is unfortunate and deserves some sympathy, but his actions take him far beyond the realm of nice.

Observant readers will have noticed the version in the collection, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day, differs from the version online.  When I first started out I used to seek feedback on the Literotica forums.  For this story someone made the suggestion that the ending would be nastier if Kurtzberg was left alive to let the horror of what he’d done sink in.  It was such a good suggestion I rewrote the ending to incorporate it.


Initial Infiltration

Aside from the usual asshole victims, a regular target of mine is the naive.  GRRM has it right with A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones for TV watchers).  When one of his characters makes a poor choice politically, he doesn’t step in to bail them out.

There has been cultural pressure to move Science Fiction away from blasting the Other on sight to presenting stories where the only correct response is to attempt to resolve conflicts through discussion and understanding.  Personally I don’t like simple black and white certitudes.  When the motives of the Other are completely unknown, which approach is correct can only be ascertained with the benefit of hindsight.  In another story, another universe, Donaldson would have been the perfect protagonist to prevent inter-dimensional war.  Sadly for him, this is not that story and hell-space is not that universe.


Succubus Summoning 101

This story eventually ended up being the first chapter of the novel of the same name.  It was originally meant to be a short story about student warlocks making incorrect (and fatal) assumptions about which bits of succubi are dangerous to stick your cock in.  On the surface there is a twisted sense to the logic.  Succubi pervert the role of sexual intercourse to create new life by using it to take life.  Anal sex can’t create new life; therefore under the same logic succubi can’t use it to drain life.  Of course it doesn’t work out that way.

I neglected to kill Phil at the end of the story and since then he’s stubbornly just about managed to stay alive despite my best efforts.

The main reason I put the story in the collection was to protect myself from plagiarism.  Someone had already tried to pass off the Succubus Summoning 101 series as their own on another website.  Amazon’s kindle store was rife with plagiarists mining story sites like Literotica for material to rip off.  Having the original Succubus Summoning 101 story in here would give me some protection against that kind of shit while I was working on the ebook version.


Puffed Up

This is another superhero deconstruction story in the vein of “Squeezed”.  Sexy villainesses have always been a feature of comics even if they rarely get to fully show their stuff (generally speaking, the hero has to survive otherwise that’s the end of the comic book).  This story is a none-too subtle dig at the counterproductive aspects of the war on drugs in our own universe.  Reading it years later I think I might have been a little too cynical with the ending.

I stopped included the superhero stories in later collections because they didn’t fit in with the shared universe elements that were starting to emerge in the series as a whole.  I do have some ideas for other sexy super-villainesses.  At some point I might assemble them into a themed collection.


I'll go through the remaining stories over the next couple of days.

Valentine's Day Promotion for A Succubus for Valentine's Day

As I'm a bitter, twisted, possibly certifiable individual with a spider-infested lump of black coal for a heart, Valentine's Day is the worst day of all. All that saccharine schmaltz and pink froth—Ugh!

To help fellow warped malfeasants through this most trying of days I’m dropping the price on my A Succubus for Valentine’s Day collection (ebook) to 99 cents for this week. This was the collection I put out this time last year. If you haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, you have until Sunday (19th) to take advantage of my irrational hostility to February the 14th and get it on the cheap.



The new price is already updated in the eXcessica store, but it usually takes a little longer (about 12 hours) for amazon, B & N and others to update.

Guaranteed to take away that sickly sweet aftertaste of too much Valentine's Day confection. Enjoy!

Numbers from a Newbie Writer's First Year

Here's the latest post I put up on the Self-Publishing Revolution blog detailing how my first year as a self-published(ish) writer has gone. Thanks to everyone who supported me through buying my books and I hope you enjoyed them! More to come next year!

I had a nice early Christmas present when my third quarter royalties came through. I was expecting this to be fairly light, but it also included some October sales, which was when my third collection of short stories, A Succubus for Halloween, came out. The amount this quarter was $600, a nice little sum right before Christmas.

That takes my total profits, after taking out initial setup costs, author copies and seller’s/publisher’s cuts, to $1,300 for my first (kind of) year as a writer. Obviously this is nowhere near the same ballpark as self-publishing titans Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath, but this is all money in the black, with the only outlay being my free time spent in an activity I enjoy doing anyway.

I put out three collections of short stories, with A Succubus for Christmas coming out October 2010, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day coming out February 2011 and A Succubus for Halloween arriving October 2011. Christmas and Valentine’s Day were originally priced at $5.99 and this was dropped to $3.99 about halfway in the year after eXcessica head honcho Selena Kitt did some experimenting on pricing. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold just under 200 copies and Halloween just over 100, making 500 books (print + ebook) in total for the whole year. It’s a modest amount, but not bad considering collections of short stories rarely sell well and my subject matter is about as far from the mainstream as you can get! :)

More promising is the growth. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold nearly 200 each over the whole year. Halloween came out at the end of the third week in October and my royalties run up until the end of October, which meant it managed those hundred-and-so sales in the first week. Baby steps, I know, but they’re going in the right direction.

Unsurprisingly, the lion’s share of these sales was through Amazon, but they are not the only game in town. I can understand why some might think Amazon’s current dominance is a cause for concern, but I suspect if Amazon really started to abuse that dominance to the detriment of writers and readers, they’d quickly find themselves outstripped by one of their competitors in the way Nintendo was usurped by Sony in the console wars of the ‘90’s. For the moment they’re fantastic and a budding writer would be foolish not to take advantage of what they have to offer.

Writers shouldn’t restrict themselves to only Amazon. Having their own webpage for direct sales can be very useful once they’ve built up a following. By promoting eXcessica’s coming soon link for A Succubus for Halloween heavily on my personal blog in the month leading up to its release I was able to generate 40 sales, nearly half of the total for that book, directly through eXcessica’s own store (which also took Halloween to the top of their bestsellers list, yay! Now if only I can match Selena’s sales out in the rest of the big bad world. :)).

For people looking to self-publish as a route to fame and riches, these numbers aren’t very exciting. If I was trying to make a living as a full-time professional writer, 500 sales and a return of $1,300 for the year would be horrifying. Thankfully I’m not, so I can feel chuffed about the numbers instead of worrying about what I’m going to live on next year.

Next year I plan to put out my first novel and a fourth collection of short stories. I don’t know where the path is going to take me, but it’s going to be fun to find out!

All the best for 2012!

2011 2nd Quarter Royalties

My second quarter royalties for 2011 came in from eXcessica today. At $180 I think it's safe to say I won't be handing in my notice at work tomorrow. :)

$180 is still $180. Can't sneeze at that. Both Succubus for Christmas and Succubus for Valentine's Day have sold nearly 150 copies each now. With Succubus for Halloween coming out next month (more on that later!) I'm hoping it'll create enough of a bump to take the overall year up to somewhere between one or two grand. I know my stories are far too extreme to ever trouble the mainstream, but it's nice to have a little sideline and maybe sow the seeds for a little longterm notoriety.

Thanks to everyone who bought the books and I hope you enjoyed them. Plenty more on the way if all goes to plan ;).

Now the question is, how much of that $180 to plough into a nice book cover for Succubus Summoning 101 after I finally acknowledge I'm too rubbish to do it properly myself...

A Succubus for Valentine's Day available in print!

Hurrah! Whatever issues with getting the print version of A Succubus for Valentine's Day out there have now been resolved. It sounds like the original email request to un-retire it was eaten by the dread Mailer-Daemon monster, never to be seen again.

It's available now from amazon. Or you can even buy it from eXcessica directly.

Here's another little excerpt, this time from The Spiders of Thomisoidus:

----

Of the list of possible planets to be posted to, Thomisoidus was down in the bottom half. It was a gloomy, brooding place. Vast swathes of the planet’s surface, the only habitable areas, consisted of gigantic twisted trees rising out of a vast primordial bog. The light from Thomisoidus’s sun was so weak the vegetation was all brown, almost verging on black, as if even this small amount of reflected light was grudgingly returned. Beneath the canopy the forest was swathed in perpetual dark gloom. Festooned with decrepit old lines of spider silk, most of the forest Joe had seen resembled the sets from old antique horror flatties.

Thomisoidus wasn’t without its positives. One of them was currently leading their small expeditionary group as a guide.

“We should leave,” Amycis said, checking the silent trees around them. “The fire may attract others.”

Amycis was typical of the Aphantokiles, the indigenous people of Thomisoidus, which meant by Earth standards she was a total babe. She—like all the Aphantokiles—had bright blue skin and long lilac hair. So what, it really didn’t matter when the average Aphantokile had a figure that looked like it had come straight from a Bosom Babe focus node and their cultural philosophy precluded the wearing of any clothes. It wasn’t a surprise The Company used pictures of the Aphantokiles to sucker gullible fools into signing up for five year residency contracts.

Joe was one such fool. He’d been too busy dreaming of a paradise planet populated with blue-skinned alien babes, he’d rushed to sign up before actually bothering to do the research.

Yeah, not so smart. Had he done some checking up first he’d have discovered the things The Company neglected to mention—the endless bogs, the perpetual gloom and the spiders, those damn creepy-eyed giant spiders.

Too late now, he was stuck here, four and a half years still to go on his contract. What a moron.

He consoled himself by watching the lovely curves of Amycis’s ass waggle from side to side as she walked in front of him. Absently, he fantasised about that perfect peach bouncing in his lap even though it was a waste of time. It wasn’t that the Aphantokiles weren’t approachable, it was just...well...it was complicated.

Joe was woken from his daydream by a sudden crack and cry of surprise. Part of the felled log they were walking on gave way underneath Amycis’s feet and she toppled over the side. They weren’t very far from the ground and it was only a short tumble to the floor below. Thankfully the bog wasn’t so deep here and Amycis had fallen into a shallow section where the water didn’t rise much higher than her calves.

Everything would have been fine—Amycis was unhurt and already getting back to her feet—but then a monstrous spider appeared out of the gloom right behind her.

A Succubus for Valentine's Day and tales of Perilous Printing

I don't seem to have much luck with CreateSpace. My first book accidentally became available six months before its proper release date. This resulted in some people's orders being cancelled, which was a little embarassing. It happened because the book wasn't sent back into temporary retirement after I got my advance author copies.

This time around the opposite problem has occurred. The book is now out, but the print version is still stubbornly stuck in 'retirement'. Very frustrating.

It's a shame as the print versions produced by CreateSpace are very nice. I wasn't sure what to expect and was really pleased when the copies came through the post. Nothing soothes the savage egomaniac quite like having a book with your own name (okay pseudonym) emblazoned on the spine, sitting on a shelf at home. Aah...

Okay, time to move on before I start sounding like a self-important twunt.

I'm not holding them right now and saying, "Precious". Honest.

Apologies to anyone waiting to get hold of a print version of A Succubus for Valentine's Day. I'll put an announcement on twitter as soon as the technical problems are resolved.

Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy of the ebook. I hope you enjoy it.

The Perfect Valentine's Day Antidote

I think I'm cursed when it comes to marketing. After a couple of weeks hyping up A Succubus for Valentine's Day as coming out on Friday the 11th, it doesn't appear for the kindle until the 12th, I'm still waiting for CreateSpace to unretire the print version so people can buy it and this post is a day late because my internet access went kaput over the weekend.

Anyways, enough griping. It's out.

Here's your antidote to the cloying tide of sugary sweetness that is Valentine's Day.



Not much love, romance, flowers and chocolate here I'm afraid. However, there is plenty of hot, sinful sex with wicked, sensual and deliciously depraved succubi to enjoy. And a few scares as well...

The ebook is available from eXcessica, Amazon, Smashwords and various other online stores.

If you'd like a print version then it can also be purchased from Amazon and eXcessica. I'm still waiting for CreateSpace to unlock it, but hopefully that will happen shortly. (Or I'll send Nÿte!)

Go on, enjoy a little succubus loving this Valentine's Night. You've only got your soul to lose...

Another excerpt from A Succubus for Valentine's Day

A Succubus for Valentine's Day and other tales of Perilous Pleasures is out on Friday. Here’s another little excerpt to get the juices flowing. This is from Puffed Up, a decidedly non-serious little superhero tale:

-----

“Who are you?” the red-skinned girl asked, staring up at Straight Arrow with green eyes that shone like lamps in the gloom.

Really? She didn’t know who he was? Straight Arrow was astounded. She’d come here, to his city, with the intent to set up a new criminal empire, and she didn’t know who he was. No matter, she’d find out soon enough.

“I’m Straight Arrow,” he answered.

“Come in, Straight Arrow. My pleasures are for all,” Papavia said, her voice smooth and seductive.

“You misunderstand,” Straight Arrow said, striding purposely down the centre of the hall. “I’m here to free these people from your evil influence.”

“Evil?” Mistress Papavia said. “These people come to me of their own free will and I give them pleasure. Don’t I?” she said to the blonde girl in her lap, running a hand tenderly through the girl’s spiky hair.

She opened her legs a little wider and a large puff of white smoke welled up out of her vagina. The blonde girl’s head was engulfed and she squirmed in bliss as she inhaled the fumes. Straight Arrow watched in disgust as she reached down and began to masturbate herself, in public.

“Such a judgemental expression,” the mutant said. “It won’t matter. Soon my vapours will relieve you of your prudish sentiments.”

Straight Arrow laughed.

“Guess again slut-queen.”

Did she really expect him to be that green? Him, the most prepared crime fighter on the East Coast.

He tapped his mask. “Filters,” he said. “Your mutant emissions will have no effect on me.”

He knew, just knew, it would turn out to be a pheromone emitting mutant, or something like it, and had prepared accordingly. That’s why he was the best.

“So, are you going to come quietly or am I going to have to work up a sweat?” Straight Arrow walked down the centre of room towards her. “Believe me, babe, you don’t want me working up a sweat.” He flexed his considerable muscles for added emphasis.

“Mutant?” Papavia said.

She started to rise from her throne. The blonde girl protested sleepily as Papavia moved her head aside.

“Babe!” Papavia snarled.

Her eyes flashed red as she stood upright on her cloven hooves. A pair of wings, black and leathery like a bat’s, unfurled behind her back.

“I am Mistress Papavia, succubus and Arch-Delectatiotrix of the second circle of Hades!”

-----

Hmm. I think our hero might be in a wee bit of bother... Check it out this Friday!

New manyeyedhydra Stories!

They do exist. I’ve been hoarding them as I aim to hit that half and half ratio between stories I’ll post up on the internet and stories I’ll keep for the anthologies. If you’re feeling withdrawal symptoms, there are three brand new stories in A Succubus for Valentine’s Day and other tales of Perilous Pleasures to look out for.

Puffed Up
An arrogant superhero tracks down the source of a new drug, Sin, hitting the streets. He discovers the drug has a hellish origin. Will his much-vaunted abilities be enough against the magical wiles of a succubus?

Fans of Garth Ennis’s work with series such as The Boys might like this one. Those with a smoke fetish or an inflation fetish might get a little extra from the story. And it goes without saying it’s perfect for fans of femme fatale super-villain vamps.

The Spiders of Thomisoidus
Off we blast into the future for a Science Fiction tale. Poor everyday dude Joe Baneham gets suckered into signing up for a five year commission on what he thought was a paradise planet filled with hot, blue-skinned alien babes. Unfortunately for him, the babes are completely inept at sex and the planet is a swamp-ridden dump infested with monstrous spiders. Things look up when Amycis, one of the beautiful indigenous locals, falls for him. But what dark secrets of her race is she hiding...?

Spiders, silk, blue-skinned alien babes, bondage and plenty of sexy teasing are all present in this little tale of extremely perilous pleasure.

Foam Shower
A guy, a girl and a very steamy shower scene. I put up an excerpt last week here.

Also features foam. Lots and lots of foam.

The other tales have been tweaked and touched up from their original versions. The title tale, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day, has a different ending to before. It’s even nastier. Beware of cutesy-looking succubi that are summoned from black stone tablets, especially when they offer to play Cupid. Brrr....

A Succubus for Valentine’s Day and other tales of Perilous Pleasures, out next week from all good online ebook stores. Please support me and buy a copy so I can continue to corrupt the internet with my twisted tales of perverse pleasures. ;)

Valentine's Day Variety Box

One of the things I noticed when putting together the stories for A Succubus for Valentine's Day was the variety. There's a sequence in the collection that runs from Harry Potter parody, to superhero story, to science fiction set in the future, to modern-day horror, to swords & sorcery fantasy, and then to a story with gangster elements. That's variety. Whether or not that's a good thing...

Well it scares the shit out of me to be honest.

Now, I could try and run the usual arrogant bastard bullshit and burble some nonsense about transcending genres. And then someone else could make some catty remarks about firing blindly with a blunderbuss in the hope of hitting the target, any target.

Variety isn't a bad thing. It keeps things from getting predictable. Too much and a collection goes all patchy, like buying the new album from a favourite band only to find there's two decent tracks, a real stinker that's unlistenable, and a whole bunch of meh to round it out.

I think I'm okay on this one. The settings vary, but the stories are all essentially horror. The femme fatales are sexy and the sex is blistering hot. Job done, as I hope you'll find out next Friday.