Identities, Sexuality, and BDSM...

I’m sure most of you have caught on the hype that Assumed Calling, Book 5 Identity Crisis Series, will be releasing in about thirty days, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about the series on Mondays for the next few weeks ending with a fantabulous tease of Assumed Calling a few days prior to release.

As you can see above the title sort of asks a lot of questions and leaves a lot of doors wide open. While each of those words relate somehow, they’re also multi-faceted words in and of themselves. But the one thing they have in common is they all helped shaped the Identity series.

I’m sure at one time one or a few of you have seen a post in which I talk about how the series began and why. Identity Crisis was a stand-alone novella intended for me to see if I could write in the BDSM genre successfully and if I even wanted to after that. Let me explain a bit of something here. Writing it is like an addiction and though I didn’t start out of the gate as perfect and shiny at it as I wanted to, I couldn’t stop once I got started. I tried very hard to veer away from my BDSM mirroring all the other pieces out there which sort of squeezed the genre into a box in which a check list is used to knock off certain items, feelings, words, positions, and equipment. Was I completely successful at that the first time out? I don’t pretend I was. I don’t feel I was. And reviewers aren’t sure. I get everything from one star to five stars so it’s hard to gauge really. At the time I was feeling my way around and finding my voice. But after honing and getting more comfortable writing in that genre, I can say without hesitation—I have improved vastly and am quite proud of my work. Reviewers seem to agree these days and the consensus is, yes, I’ve overcome check list writing.

When Identity Crisis morphed into a series, it was at first based on a theme rather than characters as the connecting thread. Each and every book would be built on someone’s identity—lack of, confusion about, fear of. Later, after book three, Assumed Identity, the books were still held together by the common theme of BDSM and identity, but characters started carrying over and appearing again and again. They’re sexuality also came into play. I started to embrace the idea I knew had been planted from the start—my characters were dictating sexuality to me. I knew then I’d listen to them. Not wanting to conform to the expected pigeon-holing and categorizing of my characters based on who they loved, I let them run wild and free.

My muse was very happy. Why must we be labeled as writers? Why must our characters be labeled and stuffed into preconceived notions of where they belong on the “lists”?

To date I’ve written straight, gay, bi, poly, menage…they tell me who they are and who they love. I don't start a story with the preconceived notion of a character is: "fill in the blank here with characterisitics and preferences." Instead, the charaacters come to me and I talk to them and learn who they are. I don't try to make them fit a mold simply because the  market dictates it or my story needs this, that, or the other person.

I’m not listed anywhere as a M/M writer, GLBT writer, or a strictly contemporary writer. In fact, my editors tend to put my books where they fit for that release date to the best of their ability because truth be told—all those genders and ways of loving and conducting a relationship play with each other in the same book. Nothing is black or white with me and my stories are filled with gray. I like it that way. I don’t see any reason we can’t have a gay couple and a straight couple in the same story or a bi-sexual trio in the same book with Dommes and gay unattached subs looking for their mates.

Maybe I’m not the run of the mill person or writer, but I don’t see the lines that dictate what’s tagged “normal”. As one of my characters so eloquently puts it, normal is a perception.

Identity Crisis is the story of Chad, Tori, and Ren. Chad and Ren are both Doms who share a very submissive Tori. But their story didn’t begin that way. Chad had to deal with who he was, his identity, before their poly-relationship could come to fruition.

An electric hum sizzled across Tori Dearborn’s sun kissed skin, setting the tiny hairs on her arms and on the back of her neck on edge as she stared at the outfit hanging on the back of the closet door in her bedroom. It was quite a number. A set of red leather chaps accompanied a red leather corset and matching g-string. Tori walked over and buried her face in the material, inhaling deeply, as a slow, delicious warmth enveloped her, sending a dull ache straight to the core of her womb. Leather. New leather. God how that smell turned her on.  

Tori reluctantly pulled her face away from the chaps long enough to notice the accessories set upon her satin covered pillow alongside an envelope. She walked over and picked up the red leather handcuffs. Her fingers glided over the smooth edges of the restraints and she wished her husband was home right this minute to try the new toy out on her. But Chad was away on business. It was the first time in their five year marriage he'd miss their anniversary, but clearly by the gifts he’d left behind, he was anticipating quite a homecoming to make up for it.  

Never in her wildest imagination would Tori have thought to marry someone like Chad Dearborn. Not only was he a successful VP at a top notch land development firm, he’d had the good fortune of growing up in the lap of luxury. He received the best private education money could buy and all the amenities that came with the wealth his family had amassed. Private country club memberships, music instruction from some of the world’s elite musicians, summers in the Caymans and winters in the European Alps. Even though there was nothing beyond his reach, Chad was the most conservative, restrained man Tori had ever known. And when he discovered her lifestyle choices, Chad was less than thrilled, but he professed a love so deep for Tori he agreed to find a way to make their relationship work. Creative compromise he'd called it.

For three hundred sixty two days a year, Tori would be the model conservative wife. She would dress appropriately for the club, mingle in all the right circles and attend all the necessary functions. But that wasn’t to say that the lifestyle she loved was completely absent those three hundred sixty two days. In the privacy of their own home, Tori sat at Chad’s feet and he fed her. He put her on a pedestal and she wanted for nothing. And in the bedroom he would occasionally pull out a silk scarf and blindfold her. But the full on, leather and bondage games that Tori thrived on were restricted to just three special days a year. On those days--Christmas Eve, Tori’s birthday, and her and Chad’s anniversary, Tori was allowed to be the leather loving submissive Chad found in a less than conservative club one night while he was out rebelling against his parents desires for him to marry a stick figure Barbie from the Hamptons.

It wasn’t love at first sight by any means. In fact, Tori resisted Chad with sass and even tried to turn him off.

 

None of the Identity books must be read in order and all can be read as a stand-alone, although books 3 and 4 are very closely related as they both deal with Julie. If you’d like to catch up while waiting on Book 5, Assumed Calling, to come out please find them at Amazon or ARe.