Author: Alexa J. Day

I write thinky, kinky erotica and erotic romance. Love turning sweet cinnamon rolls into hot cinnamon twists.

It’s Complicated, I Hope — Working with Complex Heroines

I love Lifetime movies. I can admit that without shame. I love spending a long Sunday afternoon stretched out on the couch with a nice, cool beverage and a long slate of Lifetime movies. So many different types. Bad Husband. True Crime. Don’t Trust the Babysitter. Prepare to Cry. These are only a few of the subgenres.

This month, presumably for Black History Month, Lifetime is airing three movies that prominently feature black women. (There are four Saturdays in February, but that’s another blog post.) You know I’m a sucker for the interracial romances, so I enjoyed the second one, Twist of Faith (the video at this link starts right up, but it includes a kiss). Then came Pastor Brown. From the promos, it looked like a story about a former stripper who becomes pastor of her church when the existing pastor dies.

And that is basically the story. It’s not the whole story, but that’s it in a very loose nutshell.

I hadn’t gotten very far into it before I noticed I was a little tense. At around the halfway point, I found I was even more tense. Once it was over, I had to ask myself what was so upsetting. I had a little trouble putting my finger on it, but with a little help from the world of adult film, I figured out the problem.

Almost all the women in Pastor Brown are horribly unpleasant. The ex-stripper’s sister is awful. The deacon’s wife is equally nasty. Her boss at the club in New York is nasty. Even her fair-weather friend is a piece of work.

The women who aren’t nasty are saintly. The former stripper is working HARD to atone for her sins (which, in fairness, have more to do with abandoning her son than with stripping). Along the way, we meet a woman escaping an abusive husband; she’s sleeping in the immense church because she has nowhere else to go. The old classmate whose wild past left her with HIV is now impossibly sweet; she sacrifices her chance to see the ailing pastor so that the ex-stripper (the pastor’s daughter) can have it.

There’s no middle ground. Everyone’s either terrible or on a pedestal. But that’s not the whole problem.

My problem, I realized, was that I worried that someone would see this and think it was the real world. The whole world of black women, divided neatly into nasty, abusive women and whores-turned-Madonnas. It reminded me a bit of Cindy Gallop’s Make Love Not Porn project. Cindy has no trouble with the porn industry in and of itself – her worry is that so many people believe that’s what sex is actually supposed to be like, because they’ve never been taught any differently. Sinnamon Love has a very thought-provoking article in Guernica on a similar subject. Black women are featured in adult film, she writes, but only in certain stereotypical capacities. She wants to see a wider spectrum of roles available to black women.

That was what I wanted from Pastor Brown. It’s what I hope to achieve in my own writing. My heroines are women first and foremost. They’re women like any other women. They have hopes and fears and desires. They’re not saints. They’re not nasty, judgmental harpies. They’re women, just like any other women.

If I’m doing my job, right, they’re just like us.

I’d like to say I made Grace Foley, the heroine of Illicit Impulse, just like us, but I can’t take the credit for that. After all, Grace came to me, not the other way around. (I know. It’s a writer thing. Work with me.) With a tough breakup in her recent past, she’s found a convenient place to land in Tal Crusoe’s bed. She’s deeply attracted to her best friend John (last week’s hot geek), but she’s afraid he’ll reject her. He won’t want a party girl like her. He won’t want to ruin their friendship.

He won’t want her.

And so she settles for what she has, which isn’t all that bad. Tal is any woman’s fantasy. John might not want her, but his friendship is too valuable to lose – especially now that he’s introduced her to Impulse. If only she didn’t want more.

Who among us hasn’t struggled with that? Not the trouble of having it all – the question of whether we should even want it?

That’s one of the forces driving Illicit Impulse, and it’s one of the things that made it such a challenge to write. I’m hoping that makes for good reading! Have a look at the excerpt up on Ellora’s Cave (click this, and then click the magnifying glass on the cover) and feel free to leave me a comment right here.

Blinded with Science: The Enduring Appeal of the Hot Geek

My love affair with the intellectual started early. I was in middle school, struggling with the choice between Dracula and Edward Rochester, when I fell in with Sherlock Holmes. He was absolutely brilliant, and he could not have been less interested in women. Sure, he was a bit of a bad boy. He smoked, and let’s face it, the man had a drug problem. Still. It was riveting to watch him think, and I loved that he wouldn’t engage in all sorts of foolishness to impress women.

(I’m still all about Holmes, but just the one from the Conan Doyle books. No other Holmes holds a candle to the original.)

The modern geek is something of a phenomenon these days. He’s a little different now. For one thing, he’s a lot more likely to be successful with the opposite sex. But his appeal is still based on the same few classic characteristics.

He seems unaware of his masculine wiles. His laser-beam focus is generally trained on something other than the pursuit of women, which paradoxically gives women the chance to observe him without interruption. He’ll frown at his notes, the cute little furrow appearing between his brows. He’ll rub his poor tired eyes. He’ll spend hours and hours in single-minded pursuit of his obsession, whatever it might be. He’s on fire with passion for something, whether it’s the secrets of space flight or a cure for disease, and what woman doesn’t want a man who can be passionate about his life’s work?

He has no game. At all. When he’s into you, it’s not just to make you another conquest. He’s not trying to get away with something. Honestly, he was probably paying attention to something else when you entered his world. Once he’s committed, though, he’ll choose to pursue you with his whole mind, even if he doesn’t really know what to do once he has your attention. It’s WYSIWYG at its finest.

And then there’s the physical. The little dorky touches like his bowtie, or his comic book t-shirts. The way his glasses draw attention to his eyes. The frustrated little twist that takes his mouth by the corner when he’s figuring something out. The long fingers on a keyboard or wrapped around a pencil. He’s hot, in a very specific way.

The hot geek isn’t rare, really. He’s just elusive. Since he has no game and has no idea that he’s attractive, he’s not out on the town looking for women. He’s got other things to occupy his time. When you find one in the wild, buy him a drink. It’ll make him blush and fidget in the cutest way.

My book, ILLICIT IMPULSE, features a hot geek, John March. His passion is women, actually; he studies the things that bring women and men together and the things they’ll do when they get there. So why can’t he figure out how to escape Grace Foley’s friend zone? Is he overcomplicating matters, or are things really not as they seem?

John’s going to discover the answers – the ones he asked for and some extras – in ILLICIT IMPULSE, which is available March 1 from Ellora’s Cave.

Diversity’s Never Looked Quite Like This

I’ve always written interracial romances featuring a black heroine. I’m like a lot of romance writers, in that I wanted to read and write about a heroine I could identify with. For years, I avoided reading romance altogether because I didn’t feel represented there. I might have stayed away from romance if it hadn’t been for law school. One of Mom’s friends sent me a couple of romances in a care package. I was so desperate to read about human beings and just enjoy the story, without the pressure of facing The Paper Chase the next day. I finished the first one very quickly and had to slow down and savor the others.

I still didn’t feel represented. But I was interested in what romance had to offer.

When I started reading romance, it looked like black women appeared in only two capacities – as the Sassy Black Friend, helping the heroine get the guy, or as the “exotic Creole” character. I was never clear on whether the Creole character was actually black. She always had dark hair and dark skin, but I always wondered why the author didn’t just say she was black, if she was in fact black.

I wanted to see – and, okay, maybe to be – a black heroine at center stage of her own romance novel. It wasn’t enough to help someone else get the guy and then be relegated to the end of a series (if she was lucky) with the only other black character in the books. I didn’t want to have to guess whether the heroine was black.

And that’s when I started thinking about writing romances. I had always written stories and I’d always wanted to write for publication. I just didn’t think I’d do it with romance. After all, I didn’t see anyone else publishing interracial romances, although I know now that there were a handful of them out there, scarce as hens’ teeth.

Then Sandra Kitt changed everything. The Color of Love is the romance novel I needed to see. The heroine is definitely black – she’s not olive-skinned or Creole – and she is definitely center stage. She and the hero, who is white, overcome the obstacles separating them (race-related and otherwise) to arrive at the end of the book with a declaration of love and a marriage proposal. I’d never read anything quite like it.

The Color of Love came out in 1995, so it was around when I got to law school. I just didn’t know about it. Once I found it, though, the game changed again. If she’d been published with an interracial romance (and Sandra Kitt has more than one such story out there), then I could do it, if I worked at it hard enough.

When my first novel, Illicit Impulse, comes out in three weeks, it will enter a very different world. I never thought I’d see a world with so many interracial relationships in books, television and movies. Interracial romances have long since made a place for themselves in electronic publishing, but TV and movies seem to be seeing the light, too. Finally.

I was the nut who stood up and cheered when Uhura kissed Spock in Star Trek. (Go easy on me. I’d been waiting YEARS for that.) I’m happy to see James Bond continuing a 40-year tradition of getting his swirl on. I was almost delirious with joy when ABC had two (three if we consider Grey’s Anatomy) well-established interracial relationships in prime time scripted television, although I miss 666 Park Avenue dearly now. Better still, television executives aren’t playing up the fact that their characters are falling in love across racial lines. These are just characters with their own needs and wants and dreams and problems. They just happen to be of different colors, and that’s the sort of romance I love the most.

I couldn’t be more excited to enter this field now, when the market exposure is growing. I’m part of a steadily growing audience, composed of people seeing these relationships for the first time and people who are saying “about damn time.” The sky is the limit now. I already know there are more interracial relationships on TV than I can keep track of. I claim the next book as my excuse, but I hope I can keep up with developments.

In the meantime, I need to make plans to see Skyfall.

Open Letter to Barbara Lippert, re: Volkswagen Irie

Dear Ms. Lippert:

I’m writing this on Tuesday night, to run on Thursday morning. It’s possible you’ve retracted your position with regard to the Volkswagen Super Bowl ad by now. If you have, you should disregard the remainder of this letter.

If you haven’t, I urge you to reconsider your position. I read the posts on your blog about Lance Armstrong’s Oprah interview and about Coke’s anti-obesity message. I’m actually curious to see what you’ve got to say about Helen Gurley Brown. The two posts I read are sharp and insightful, and all of this makes your position on this Volkswagen ad harder to understand.

I watched your interview on the Today show, in which you mentioned that the ad contained no link to Volkswagen. I confess I didn’t understand what you meant. I presumed the bright red Volkswagen that the main character uses to cheer up his coworkers was a link to Volkswagen. Is that not the case?

Shortly thereafter, you made reference to a “black accent.” What, precisely, is a black accent? Certainly you do not mean to suggest that all black people employ the same “accent,” dialect, or cultural speech pattern. That really would be offensive. I’m also hoping that you’re not suggesting the Jamaican accent – which is actually what we’re hearing, Ms. Lippert – is the exclusive province of black people. I’m pretty well versed in what Jamaicans sound like; my mother is Jamaican. She is black. My great-grandfather was Chinese. My grandfather spent his Jamaican youth with white, Indian and Asian Jamaicans. I’ve had the privilege of meeting many of them, as well as my mother’s equally diverse childhood friends and babysitters. They all sound like the guy in the commercial.

I want to make sure I’m being clear here. The last time I was in Jamaica, maybe five years ago, I met quite a few people who were not black but who spoke with precisely the same Jamaican accent as the guy in the commercial. It is not a “black accent,” Ms. Lippert. It is a Jamaican accent.

To me, a half-Jamaican, it’s a sound that speaks to equal measures of hard work and good times. It speaks of the slower pace of island life and the conviction to live in the present moment, to live fully, if not intensely.

It is a hell of a lot more than “black people are happy.”

I would also refer you to a series of Volkswagen ads in which a Swedish actor portrays a German engineer devoted to “un-pimping” people’s cars in the style of the then-popular MTV show, Pimp My Ride. In these ads, the engineer uses a fairly broad spectrum of hip-hop vernacular with a German accent, to comedic effect. “Ve just dropped it like it’s hot,” he says, before throwing a gang sign of sorts and claiming “V-Dub, representing Deutschland.”

I do not recall that anyone was offended by this. The argument for offense here, however, is at least as sound as yours. Shouldn’t we take offense that white Europeans are appropriating hip-hop terminology? If Jamaicans are using a “black accent,” why did no one address the appropriation of “black culture” in this case?

For the record, I thought those commercials were funny, too. Especially the one with the trebuchet. Hip-hop culture is at least as diverse as West Indian culture, but many people incorrectly presume that it is the exclusive province of black Americans.

In any event, I’d suggest respectfully that you remove the phrase “black accent” from your vocabulary. You’re the media expert, but I can’t imagine that’s playing awfully well to a black demographic. It certainly offended me, not that this letter is about conflating one person’s wounded feelings to an entire group of people.

I hope you’ll leave me a note in the comments; I’d really enjoy hearing from you. In the meantime, it is my ardent hope that Volkswagen airs that commercial on Sunday.

Regards,

Alexa Day

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

very-inspiring-blogger-award

Anne Lange nominated me yesterday for the Very Inspiring Blogger award, which is all nice and shiny just above. Anne’s first book, WORTH THE RISK, is available right now from Etopia Press.

Of course, winning such an award comes with responsibilities as well. I’ve got to post the plaque (there it is, above), tell you all 7 things about myself and choose 15 more people to receive the award after me. I don’t know that I’ll get to 15 people tonight, but I promise you’ll get as much as I have to offer.

Seven Things About Alexa

1. I got an A+ in high school English for writing a racy sonnet about Verona. My teacher said he didn’t care about the content, so long as we got the form right. I bet he didn’t say that to the following year’s class.

2. I’m a total geek, especially with regard to Star Trek. I paid full theater price to see the most recent movie in IMAX. Three times. I don’t think I’ve paid full theater price to see another movie since, although I considered paying to see The Hobbit in IMAX just to see the long trailer for the next Star Trek movie.

3. Losing my job in November 2011 is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Had I not lost that job, I wouldn’t have discovered bartending as an alternate career path. I also wouldn’t have finished my novel, ILLICIT IMPULSE, which is coming soon from Ellora’s Cave (plugplugplug).

4. If I could live anywhere in the world, I’d choose Shanghai. If you restricted me to living inside this country, I’d pick New York City.

5. I can probably recite Blazing Saddles.

6. If I could travel backward in time to anyplace in my past and live there forever, I’d choose my third year at the University of Virginia. High school was over, law school hadn’t happened yet, and just about everything was right with my world.

7. There are at least three knitting projects in progress at my house at any given time.

This has been fun! Many thanks to Anne for nominating me. I, in turn, nominate the following people:

Denise Golinowski

Nara Malone

Madeline Iva

Sofie Couch

Leah St. James

Tracey Livesay

Nancy Naigle

Tina Glasneck

Enjoy the trip! And don’t forget to sign the guest book.

Cocktailery: Living with Consequences, or The Hangover Remedy

Very short post in Cocktailery this month. I’m having an exciting month, but with everything going on, there’s not much time for the drinking. There’s not much time for anything, really. I’m trying hard to make time for the day job.

This month, as we’re torn between celebrating and wanting to start fresh, healthy new years, I wanted to quickly share my favorite hangover remedy. I learned it in bartending school, and with all the celebrating for New Year’s Eve, the sale of my first novel, and a milestone birthday coming up fast, I have had – and God willing, will continue to have – lots of reasons to use it.

According to my bartending instructor, who is wise indeed, much of the unpleasantness that comes with the standard hangover is caused by dehydration and low blood sugar. Repairing the consequences of our actions, then, is really about getting hydrated again and restoring something close to normal blood sugar levels. It’s all about the pre-planning.

Step One: Before you go out, buy yourself a couple of packets of Kool-Aid. Prepare it according to the instructions, but put in just a tiny bit more sugar than required. I use hot water to dissolve the Kool-Aid and the sugar faster. It’s going to be in the fridge all night long anyway.

Step Two: Put the Kool-Aid in the fridge. Then go out and drink as usual. Cheers!

Step Three: Come home. Or at least to the place where the Kool-Aid is. You’re going to need it kind of soon.

Step Four: Go to bed. If you did this right, it should be late.

Step Five: When you get up for the first time to use the bathroom, drink a nice tall glass of the Kool-Aid. Then go back to bed.

Step Six: The next time you get up, you should feel a lot better. You may not even feel hung over. If this is not the case, and you still feel a little used up, repeat Step Five.

Step Seven: You really ought to feel better when you get up again. If you need three glasses of Kool-Aid, there’s a chance you’ve got alcohol poisoning, and you should behave accordingly.

A couple of quick words about the Kool-Aid cure.

I prefer to use actual Kool-Aid, made with actual sugar, rather than my usual bar standby, Crystal Light lemonade. You need the sugar to get the job done. Don’t use iced tea – the caffeine isn’t doing you any hangover favors. Kool-Aid is uncomplicated and cheap, plus there’s some nostalgia value, right? My bartending sensei said sugar water will work just fine if you don’t have Kool-Aid, but I don’t think of sugar water as a beverage. If I don’t finish all the Kool-Aid, I can always have it with dinner later. What are you going to do with a pitcher of sugar water?

Neighbors, get your Kool-Aid on! May you have many occasions to drink it.

Day on Bond on Bond

Mom and I have a long-running argument about who is the best James Bond. Don’t laugh. I bet you have debates like this in your family, too. Mom says it’s Sean Connery. I cannot agree.

“Roger Moore is the real James Bond,” I said.

Mom was incredulous. She could not believe that a well-educated, sophisticated woman like me would choose Roger Moore over Sean Connery. But I do. Roger Moore was my first Bond – A View to a Kill was the first Bond movie I ever saw – and I think everyone has a certain loyalty to her first Bond. Having seen all the other Bonds (except Daniel – it’s a personal thing), I find I would still choose Roger Moore. His Bond, with apologies to Yul Brynner, is Bond.

This Christmas, Mom acknowledged the special place in my heart that James and Roger share, and she gave me a copy of Bond on Bond, written by Sir Roger himself. The book is really a memoir of sorts, a guided tour through the Bond franchise, complete with insider stories and photos. The writing is wonderful; I feel like I’m sitting across the table from my favorite Bond. But if the pictures serve to remind me of the Bond I fell in love with all those years ago, the memoir as a whole is tailor-made for a woman on the cusp of a milestone birthday.

Roger Moore was 45 when he took up the mantle of Bond. Never too late to start doing something magical, is it? Our society starts trying to convince us that we’re too old to do things at 30 or so. I’m so inspired to hear that my favorite Bond was over 40 when he became 007.

Roger doesn’t take himself too seriously. The true joy of the book, the center of its conversational voice, is his gently self-deprecating humor. He doesn’t have anything to prove. He can look back on that remarkable period of his life, which includes Moonraker, the space movie, with the grace and confidence that can only come from someone who has thoroughly enjoyed his time in the sun but has moved on to another place, that is just as sunny in its own way.

He’s generous with praise for the other Bonds. No one’s a competitor, and no one’s an outsider (not even Daniel). Roger treats the other Bonds as if they’re part of a family. A really weird family where you might flip your car through a corkscrew turn on the way to the grocery store.

Back then, I wanted to be James Bond. Tonight, almost 30 years later, I still do.

Do I dare to open the debate here in the comments? I do. I do dare.

My Heart Belongs to Paper … but the Kindle is Pretty Awesome

This Christmas, Mom and I elected to join the 21st century, already in progress. We got each other Kindles. We do not need to do anything on the Kindle other than read, so we got the little one with the ads. We are both hard-core book addicts. Mom started me using when I was just a kid, and now I’m trying to make my own in my house after work. We do not see how ads for other books presented on a reading device could possibly be a problem. Seriously, if you were smoking crack, and in between rocks, your pipe lit up with ads for discounts on more crack, would you ever complain about that?

I’m digressing a little. But let me just say, at the outset, that I will probably always prefer the paper book.

I’m kind of old school in this regard. I like the weight of the paper book. I like the feel of the pages. Deckled edges? Oh, yes, please! Marbled endpapers? Indeed! And the spines on the shelf! My ex gave me a three-volume definitive Sherlock Holmes set (with annotations!) that just … reassures me when I look at it. When Ray Bradbury died, I held my autographed copy of Green Shadows, White Whale and thought of his hand on the page as he signed it. I first perused Reclaiming History just because it was a hefty, hefty tome, but I bought it for the promise of reading Bugliosi on the Kennedy assassination. Sixteen hundred glorious pages, plus so many notes he had to put them on a CD-ROM. I’m drooling a little just writing about it.

I said I was addicted.

The argument for the Kindle and its ilk with regard to my chosen genre is a powerful one. Some people evidently take issue with being seen in public reading erotica. I understand. I do! I just don’t have that problem.

One night I took my copy of Fortytude to a bar and met a good-looking soldier who was also celebrating a milestone birthday – his 30th. I met a handsome intellectual who saw me reading Les Liaisons Dangereuses on the bus. The paper book shows the world not only that I do read, but it shows the world what I read, and therefore just a bit of who I am. It’s like a nametag. I personally would not have minded showing the world that I am reading Held Captive by the Cavemen. That doesn’t trouble me at all. If it troubles those sheltered souls sitting nearby, then maybe they should look into minding their own business.

But one cannot purchase a paper copy of Held Captive by the Cavemen. If one has a Kindle, though, one can have it all ready to go in less than a minute. I think it took me three clicks to put it on the machine, and now it’s waiting for me. (I need to hurry this post along, actually, so I can start reading it.)

Then I started poking around, looking for other stuff to buy. This is where the Kindle gets dangerous. Scoring a paper book takes a little effort. Hardback? Paperback? Don’t even start me on the shipping. The Kindle takes you from whim to purchase in just seconds. And so, when I found Dirty for the Kindle for just a couple of bucks, I went for it. I love Megan Hart’s work – the world she creates would be very cool to live in, even without the sex … but then there’s sex in it. A win-win if I ever saw one.

This time it only took one click. Very nice.

There’s a lot to like about the Kindle, to be sure. It’s tiny but strong. It’s discreet. It’s fast. It’s not terribly expensive. And if I’m going to be working in the realm of e-publishing – and interracial erotica all but guarantees that – I need to get comfortable with all these advantages.

The paper book is my first love, though. I will probably end up being the little old lady sitting on the park bench with a paper copy of The Complete Novels of Jane Austen. Over on the bench next to me, a mother will tell her little boy, “See, Jimmy? That lady has a paper book. Long ago, you could only get books on paper.”

And Jimmy’s going to say, “I thought they all came on rocks way back then!”

And then the little wise-ass and his mom are going to laugh. But I won’t care.

I will be too busy stealing glances over my book at that shirts vs. skins touch football game. Those guys won’t notice. The Jane Austen makes me look harmless.

You can’t do that with a Kindle. Can you?

An Exotic Dance Christmas, or Giving, Receiving, and Taking It All Off

Ready for a Christmas secret?

Everyone’s heard that it’s better to give than to receive. A lot of us have heard it from someone who wanted something. That’s not the secret.

The secret is that giving and receiving are holding hands. Don’t tell anyone. The whole world doesn’t need to know that when you make yourself available – when you give of your time, your spirit, whatever – you put yourself in line to receive some stuff.

Let me tell you a heartwarming Christmas story to illustrate this point.

‘Twas ten days before Christmas when I went to the local strip club to see the male revue. I was supposed to go with friends, but … well, of my circle of friends, I am the most likely to assign top priority to a trip to see male dancers. So I made my way alone to the club, whistling Christmas carols with a fistful of singles in the pockets of my jeans. Talk about your holiday cheer, right?

I figured the upper room that was home to the male revue would be crowded with other women ready to celebrate the male form. Kind of surprising, then, to find the place empty.

Seriously. Completely empty. This was where the cycle of giving and receiving started.

I figured that whatever happened at this point was going to be interesting. Certainly more interesting than whatever else I might have planned, which was probably reruns or something like that. At the very least, I’d get a good story for my friends. I made myself available to receive whatever opportunity presented itself in that empty upstairs room.

I walked all the way around the room, trying to figure out where the best seat actually was. Here, equidistant from the pole and the bar? Here, within reach of the stage? Decisions, decisions. I was about to try out the spot near the stage when one of my hosts emerged from behind a door near the curtain. He wasn’t much taller than I am, but I could tell he had a nice build underneath the track jacket he wore. He stopped short when he saw me, the way any good host would if he saw a guest unattended in his sitting room.

“Oh,” he said. He hurried over to the corner of the room to turn on some music. “Didn’t know anyone was here.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m just getting here.”

He offered me a drink and then hustled out to get the bartender. Within just a few minutes, I was sitting in my own personal strip club, with my own personal bartender (himself a former dancer). While I’m hanging out, enjoying the view and looking forward to having the room all to myself, another of the dancers comes from the magical doorway near the curtain. I grinned at him and waved. He gave me a delighted smile, as if I were a good friend, and came over to join us at the bar.

As it happened, this was his very first night on the job. I asked if he was nervous.

“Nah,” he said. “Maybe a little. That’s normal, right?”

Baby Dancer was very young. He was lean but muscular, in a T-shirt that glowed under the black light. He seemed to have an awful lot of tattoos for someone who made money with his shirt off, but that was more of a curiosity to me than anything else.

“Totally normal. I’d be more worried if you weren’t nervous.”

I told Baby Dancer that I’m a dance instructor, and we were discussing the benefits of nervousness when still another dancer came through the doorway. This one was tall and very powerful looking, and wherever he goes, people likely presume he either is or could be a stripper. When he came over to the three of us at the bar, he looked me right in the eye, and for the first time, I felt as if I was being evaluated.

I evaluated him right back. Not bad at all. This has turned out to be an excellent evening already, and no one was even dancing yet. Baby Dancer explained that the man sizing me up was his mentor.

“This is his first time,” said the Mentor. The smile hid the very slight protective edge to his voice. I grinned back at him. I really was just happy to be here, literally surrounded by strippers, receptive to whatever happened next, but I thought it was cute that this hot, imposing person apparently believed I was going to do something to his protégé.

“That’s what I hear. He says he’s nervous,” I said.

The Mentor glanced over at Baby Dancer. Evidently he was not supposed to disclose that he was not completely in control of the room.

“Some first night, huh?” said Baby Dancer, and I was reminded that I was the only woman in the room, which was maybe not as good for them as it was for me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it’s good. Sometimes it’s better to try out new technique for a smaller crowd than take chances with a full room.”

I had the Mentor’s attention again. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “Do you want to be a guinea pig?”

I promise I’m not making this up. This is the sort of thing that can happen when you’re open to offering what you can and receiving whatever awesome surprises come your way.

“Sure,” I said. “Happy to help.”

Remember how I was looking for the best seat a little while ago? The Mentor pulled a chair out toward the center of the room, right in front of the pole. That, neighbors, was the best seat in the house.

“See, this is good,” said the Mentor, as the two of us watched Baby Dancer work that pole. “Usually, we just have the empty chair to practice with. Tough to demonstrate lap dances with no one in the chair.”

“I will sit right here in this chair,” I said, “for as long as you need me to do that.” I really meant that, too. I was just happy to have the opportunity to be of service.

That’s really how I ended up in the best seat in the house, with an experienced dancer, a former dancer and a new dancer, demonstrating lap dance techniques on me for … gosh, how long was it? I think I became a little overstimulated at some point and lost track of time, right around the lesson about whispering in my ear. I got to that magical place (in the chair, get your minds out of the gutter) by expecting nothing, offering something, and being open to everything.

A month ago, when I was in this mindset, I ran across a group of firefighters hanging out on the sidewalk, all as friendly as they were handsome. Around Thanksgiving – again, while I was in this state of mind – the Charlotte airport was crowded with good-looking fellows. If this is woo-woo, it’s my kind of woo-woo. Giving and receiving and receiving and giving – it’s all mixed up in a wonderful, wonderful circle made of male strippers.

Who knows what will follow that?

Actually, I do kind of know. Four days after this, I sold my first book, ILLICIT IMPULSE, to Ellora’s Cave. That’s pretty much the best thing I could ask for right now. So what comes after that?

I’m certainly open to finding out.

Cocktailery: Spiced Rum, Merry!

Last week, on the W3 blog, I mentioned that this can be a tough season for single people. Truth is, the holidays and the start of a new year (or, depending on what you believe, the end of the world) can make this time of year hard for any sane person. In my favorite holiday movie, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Clark Griswold experiences an emotional breakdown of sorts before asking his father for advice about how to survive a “full-blown, four-alarm” family Christmas.

“How did you get through it?” Clark asks.

“I had a lot of help from Jack Daniels,” his father responds.

(Two quick observations: ABC Family is comfortable with Clark’s dad saying that Clark has “cocked up” Christmas but doesn’t want him to mention Jack Daniels. And this dialogue between Clark and his dad is a genuinely touching moment in this coarse, goofball comedy.)

Jack’s a good guy to have around, certainly. He never has any conflicting plans. He’s willing to do whatever you’re doing. Some of your relatives already know him. Jack’s a good bet.

I, however, prefer the company of the Captain. Blame my uniform fetish.

The little bottle of Captain Morgan – the one you can get into your purse or the inside pocket of your sports coat – that guy’s going to get you through the thick of the holidays. Keep the Captain close by, and he will smooth over all the rough spots this holiday season. You’ll smile and chuckle through the Annual Recitation of Grievances. You’ll shake off the Intrusive Holiday Questions. Unjustified Criticism will feel like just another conversation. A teensy bit of help from the Captain might not eliminate all those holiday tensions, but they will soften just enough around the edges.

Let the Captain join forces with these three merry mixers for a happier holiday!

Splash a little Captain Morgan into the bottom of your mug before pouring eggnog into it. The weight of the nog should mix it up nicely, and unless you used more than a little, the smell won’t give you away. You can try this with hot chocolate, too. If you’re using instant cocoa, you might be best off to let the Captain lower himself into your cup after stirring in the chocolate but before adding the marshmallow. For your heavier, milk-in-a-saucepan hot chocolate, proceed as you would with eggnog; the same principle applies. Finally, hot apple cider just loves the Captain. Cider is fragrant enough to effectively conceal the Captain’s distinctive scent, but it’s not terribly heavy, so there’s not much between you and the buzz.

Big plans for the holidays? Let the world know in the comments.