She was quite sure they watched her, the couple who lived across the way. The street was narrow, the balconies small; no more that twenty yards separated their second floor apartment from hers.

She could feel their eyes on her early mornings when she rose and shuffled half naked from her bedroom into the kitchen. She kept the lights low while she made coffee, her bare nipples straining in the cool morning air, her panties bunching in the crack of her ass. Surely, they could see her through the half-closed blinds.

She knew they glimpsed her crossing from the bathroom, fresh from the shower, into her bedroom, her clothes laid out across the bed. They must have seen when she toweled off, then tied the towel around her head and rubbed lotion on her legs, ankles to thighs.

She suspected they caught her that evening on the sofa. She’d been watching a foreign film with sub-titles and lots of sex. She plunged a hand deep into her sweats, pinching her clit and fingering until she came like thunder on the prairie.

She wondered if they saw that early morning of the man in the blue raincoat. She picked him up in a bar, brought him back home, and pushed him onto the kitchen table. She knelt before him, unfurled his beautiful cock, and sucked without stopping

She’d been thinking about two for sometime. The idea of it haunted her dreams and daytime fantasies.

When she’d see two men together, walking down the street or sitting shoulder to shoulder at a bar, she couldn’t help herself.

She’d imagine the three of them together.

How would it begin? Who would make the first move? How would it play out?

Flirting would lead to conversation. Conversation to a kiss, a kiss to touching. The men would smile and wink. She would feel flushed, wet with anticipation. She would invite them back to her place. Both men.

She imagined one man kissing

A writer works mostly in isolation, so now and then it’s good to receive some recognition.

I’m pleased to announce that my new collection of erotic short stories received high praise at Erotica Revealed this month.

Says Lisabet Sarai of my work:

“Alicia Night Orchid writes long, tangled tales with endings you do not expect. She does not write “sex scenes.” Instead, she manages to infuse passion into every paragraph. One of the best stories in the collection is “Smoke,” the chronicle of a woman’s unusual but irresistible fetish. Another standout is “Torn in Two,” an erotic noir fantasy that explores the dangerous, seductive links between sex and death. “Savage Nights” recreates the dope-drenched aura of the Sixties, when all the flowers, drugs and sex in the world couldn’t quite drown out the screams of young men dying in ‘Nam.

She lusted for the sensual rub of fabric between her legs.

As a budding adolescent girl, while

He’d really pissed her off.

Out of town for five days, he was supposed to come home and have dinner with her, wrap himself around her, worship her for at least a little while before heading out again. Instead, after she’d spent time away from writing her novel

She wanted to be touched.

She wanted a man to rub shoulders with her on the street car.

She wanted to feel a man’s pelvis pressed against her buttocks as she stood in a crowded elevator.

She wanted a lover to embrace her from behind, cup her breasts in his hands, and pinch her nipples while growling in her ear, “I want to fuck you, baby.”

She wanted someone to kiss away the powdered sugar left over on her upper lip

She woke up feeling slick and slippery, you know, down there, where she used have hair before she shaved it then paid another woman to remove the stubble with a laser.

She sat up, pushed the covers to the floor,hiked up her nightgrown and

I’ve done readings of my work to live audiences on a few occassions, but hearing my work read aloud by another person, in this case a professional reader, was pretty awesome.

I first encountered Nobilis Reed at the Erotica Reader’s and Writer’s Association

I have a character in a couple of my upcoming stories, Jazz. She’s a young woman in NOLA, who features herself as a voodoo maman. And she’s often threatening to put a spell on the men who she’d like to “love up.”

I’m not where Jazz bubbled up from in my consciousness, but I know her when I see her and know her voice when I hear it.

Nina Simone’s version “I Put a Spell on You” is the rawest, sexiest version I’ve ever heard..except maybe Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s version.

I heard Screamin’ Jay’s version at party in NOLA years ago. People started taking off their clothes while it played.

Give Nina a listen. What a voice…a voice like Jazz’s voice.

I wrote my story, “Ghosts” in the deepest, darkest days of the recession while I was still living in California. It’s about a different kind of ghost.

Maybe you know a few like this, people who just disappeared as their homes went under water, as their credit card bills overcame them.

The idea for the story came from a friend. Several people in his neighborhood just vanished. The neighbors didn’t know they were gone until days or weeks after their departure.

We all subsist in our own little worlds.

Until something forces us to break free.

Have you broken free lately?