Novels? We got ’em: Probation

Probation

Gavan Dymun runs out of money while completing a UCLA law degree, and gets a job as a probation officer in Carson, LA.

His caseload includes Ana Matutumua, a girl who’s being harassed by Frank Curnow, a cop who’d worked with her father, a drug importer, who thinks that Ana’s father owes him a lot of money, and that Ana knows where he is. He provokes Ana into pushing him, and arrests her for assault on a police officer.

Her legal trouble infuriates her, and so does the fact that at her sentencing Gavan did something she didn’t understand to keep her out of jail, and that her father didn’t help her.

As a kind of protest she shoplifts a broach, and is again arrested.

Gavan becomes her probation officer, and realizes what’s happening with Curnow. While trying to keep Ana out of legal trouble he becomes more attracted to her. He falls in love.

Ana is aware of his desire, and is both flattered and amused by it, and by the fact that he’s not allowed to do anything about it. She loves him too, but since he refuses to act, winding him up is fun, too.

Sa’afia, Ana’s cousin, goes to a party with Ana and meets Gavan. She sees him throw another boy at Ana, and mistakenly assumes he’s heart-broken. They talk, but it’s only when Sa’afia realizes Gavan is the probation officer Ana has been teasing that she really likes him. They take a taxi to his place.

Over succeeding chapters they are drawn into sexual experimentation, based on desires Sa’afia knew she had but never expected to practice, and that Gavan had not suspected in himself. She starts addressing him as “Sir”. He adjusts to his new responsibilities with a troubled conscience but remarkably easily.

Ana is somewhat jealous of her cousin for having Gavan, but still flirts with him mercilessly, and relies on him for help with the police.

Curnow assaults her, to show he can, and steps up his campaign to get her to tell him where her father is. She does not know, and in any case wouldn’t tell him.

Gavan, with help from policewoman June Sevigny, discovers that Curnow intends to frame Ana for possession of a dealing quantity of cocaine. He ruins the attempt to plant drugs at her apartment, with help from former almost-girlfriend Jane Seidel, a lawyer with the Community Law Centre.

Curnow is suspended. Charges against Ana are dropped. An associate of Curnow’s, who’d attempted to rape Ana, is gruesomely killed by a brain-damaged man who worships Ana, who has been giving him food.

Sa’afia and Gavan, now a couple, arrive at Ana’s to take her out to dinner to celebrate her release from legal troubles.

 

(Is there a sequel? Why, yes! There are two. The first of them is mostly written. But you’ll just have to wait.)

Introducing another novel: The Tale of the Tawse

The Tale of the Tawse is in five parts, and contains 83,706 words.

Plot

Freddie Underwood is a New York-based public relations writer and event organizer. He’s at a conference in Glasgow, after which he plans to meet his lover Sharzad Malouf in Rome. He meets Daphne Rintoull, an artist who’s been dumped by her lover, and beds him on the rebound. So he has two women in his life.

The story follows his relationship with Shar from first meeting in New York, their time together in French Guyana, to Rome. He helps her confront a teacher who put her in hospital, when she was a four-year staying in an English boarding-school because her parents had unwisely involved themselves in mid-East politics.  

With Freddie’s support, she confronts the man, and is able to see him as small and fearful; a ghost is laid. She celebrates that, and Freddie saying he loves her, by walking into Trevi’s pool. She does the Anita Ekberg walk from La Dolce Vita, until she slips and falls in. Freddie performs an unnecessary rescue and realises they are similarly foolish.

They have to part when Shar has to go back to work. They are in love, though they can’t see how they can be together, in the US or her country.

Meanwhile Daphne has told a Roman gallery she has enough work for an exhibition, which is not true. She begs Freddie’s help and support. He keeps her brave while she creates the extra work needed. He writes her an exhibition category full of the most ferocious art-wank.

At the opening, he thinks she’s seducing a critic (who she’s actually trying to escape), and drags her off to have jealous sex with her in a broom closet. They disturb a tin of paint thinner stored above them, and fall out in front of the Minister for the Arts, an actual Fascist, and the media. So Daphne’s exhibition is a tremendous success, making the news and not just the arts pages. 

They also part, but not before they have admitted that they love each other.

Freddie returns to New York. Both women, for different reasons, invite him to be with them in a couple of months, at a climate change conference in Wellington, New Zealand.

Freddie has to admit he’s out of competence. He no longer knows what to do.

 

(Is there a sequel? Of course there is.)

 

Potentially important aspects of my manuscript

1  It’s a funny book, with a hell of a lot of sex in it. Much of the sex is bdsm-flavored, though light and romantic, and neither scary nor impersonal.

2  It’s a rom/com set in the real world. For a book with bdsm elements, it’s refreshingly free of billionaires, werewolves and mysterious islands.

3  It’s told from a male point of view, but beta-testing drafts indicate that the text is woman-friendly. 

Eroticon UK: The Jaime papers!

In a week, I’ll be at Eroticon UK! 

On Friday, I’ll be there for drinks. I herewith present my papers!

Name (and Twitter handle if you have one)

My name is Jerusalem Mortimer. But people generally call me Jaime.

It’s like James, but with no “s” on the end. One syllable. It’s not Jamie. 

For social purposes and dauphins, my name is Jaime.

But I’m not thingy about it. Fact is, smile at me and I’ll answer to any bloody thing.  

The pic is me on Day 10 after having my face ripped about by weasels! I can almost recognise myself. I’m having the stitches taken out this afternoon. 

My Twitter handle is @JaimeMortimer.

What are you most looking forward to about Eroticon 2018?

Meeting up with the lovely Zoe, from @sexismynewhobby! That’s the big headline for me.

Beyond that, I’m looking forward to meeting lots of lovely people, who are so damn sharp, cool and nice (and generally lovely) that they astound me to admiration. I will buy many drinks! 

Also, I really liked Camden when I was there last year, and I’m looking forward to getting to know the place a little better this time around. 

We are creating a play list of songs for the Friday Night Meet and Greet. Nominate one song that you would like us to add to the play list and tell us why you picked that song.

Jerusalem (“And did those feet, in ancient time…”).

The Emerson, Lake and Palmer version.

Because Blake is about elemental force, and freedom, and breaking “the mind-forg’d manacles”. Also, the ELP version is an awesome reinvention of a brilliant song.  

Weirdest place you’ve ever gotten up to mischief (define ‘mischief’ however you like…)

The Tutaekuri River, in New Zealand. The name, by the way, means “dogshit” in Maori. I suspect that some nineteenth century surveyor asked a local Maori what that river was called. The Maori guy came up with that, keeping a straight face, so it got into the mapbooks. It’s quite a pretty river, really.

Anyway, I was having sex with my girlfriend in a deep pool on one side of the Tutaekuri River, sitting on some underwater rocks.

The watery fucking got to an urgent point, but then a raft floated by, packed with boy scouts and a pink scoutmaster.

He kept trying to draw the boys’ attention to some sight on the opposite side of the river from us. He didn’t have much luck.

We stopped and didn’t start again till they’d they’d drifted on downriver and out of sight. Then, a minute later, there was another boyscout raft, this one with a red scoutmaster. We tried to lean back and look respectable, and not look too obviously joined, underwater. They passed, and the fucking resumed. 

And then… there was a third raft, with a crimson scoutmaster.

We waited for a bit, but that was it. When the girlfriend came, it was the first time I’d ever heard a woman make orgasm noises and hysterical giggles simultaneously. Best sound ever, I thought. 

Anyway, so we’ve done our bit for sex education.  

Tell us two truths and a lie about yourself

  1. I am indomitable, probably to a fault.
  2. I secretly fear that my powers are not up to my ambitions, as a writer. 
  3. When I was 11, I wrote a novel in which Percy Bysshe Shelley was rescued from drowning by a man in a time machine, who sent him to America to save the place from right-wing crazies on religion.

Complete the sentence: I want..

… to find a publisher for three books. Two novels, one funny and one crime-and racism focussed, also a non-fiction book about bdsm. Put me in paper!  

Subscribe to this lovely blog!

I’m a writer. For money I mostly write about things like water distribution rights, health policy, social housing and other things for organisations who pay me for the research and writing work.

This is what happens to starving writers. Thomas Chatterton, dying in his garret. The model, oddly enough, is George Meredith, who was also a starving poet when he posed for this.
You don’t want me to die in a garret, in my snazzy blue pants, do you?

But I’d like to complete the shift to being a purely creative writer, who makes a living by selling stories I want to tell.

I’ve written a non-fiction book on bdsm, and two novels. I’ve put off the actual selling part of the writer’s job, because although I’ve sold many other products for paying customers, self-promotion doesn’t come naturally to me.

But you can help me, and it won’t cost you a cent. Please subscribe to this blog!

There’s a subscription note at the top of my right-hand sidebar. If you can’t see the sidebar, just click the Jerusalem Mortimer banner above, and it’ll appear, along with the other posts on my front page at the moment.

Fill in your email, click subscribe, and, well, that’s it. That’s all you need to do. 

I know that about 2,300 people visit my blog each week. The value of subscribing, for you, is that you get notified by email of my posts as they come out. I post four times a week, and the posts tend to tell stories, sometimes sexy, sometimes funny, sometimes both. I also write occasional information and opinion pieces, though mostly I’m a story-teller.

So I wouldn’t be flooding your in-box. I generally wait till I have something substantial to say before posting. If it’s just a joke, an opinion, or something small, I’ll probably just tweet it. (You can also subscribe to my Twitter feed, using the link on the right sidebar.)

Books should not be free, or there won’t be any new books that people have put hard work into.
But bodies and minds should be free. Helping writers helps everyone!

Your subscription helps me because it shows potential publishers that I do have an audience, and so it might be worth giving me money and sticking my writing between covers.

As well as in e-books, but I do have a fondness for paper. You can spank someone with a paperback, without needing complex electronic repairs to your e-reader. For example.

So… please subscribe to this blog! The subscription button is at the top of my right-hand side bar.

And thank you for reading!

The space my books should go is currently overrun by wooden cats. It’s a wilderness! Subscribe and help fill this space with new and beautiful books!

Dialog in a delicatessen: sometimes there are no sexual secrets

Coffee

Ana guarded the last table while Svitlana brought over coffees and bagels. Svitlana put Ana’s coffee in front of her, and sat down. She looked at Ana over her glasses. “No, I’m not a lesbian because my husband used to punch me around. He started punching me when he found out I’m a lesbian.” A few heads turned, at the word ‘lesbian” loudly and cheerfully spoken.

Ana had wanted to go for lunch with Svitlana – she’d swapped her lunch hour with one of the salesmen to make it possible – because she’d thought they both had sexual secrets, and she’d wanted to talk about hers. She’d just learned that Svitlana didn’t actually have any sexual secrets. Svitlana still seemed the best person to talk to, about being a girl who liked obeying, and who liked it when her boyfriend bruised her, so long as he did it carefully.

Ana said, “Sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t mean, ‘How could your life have gone so wrong that you became a lesbian?’ But I must have sounded like that. And that must be annoying.”

Bagel

Svitlana smiled and put her hand on Ana’s wrist. Ana made herself not move her arm. Her discomfort came from the things she’d been taught at home, from her own mother and then Senemelia, and from the First Samoan Church. She knew those lessons were wrong, but she’d never had to confront them before. If there were lesbians in the First Samoan Church they were careful to hide it. But she had no right to inflict her upbringing on Svitlana.

“No, honey. You’re not a hater. There are things you don’t know and you asked me. That’s the right thing to do. I’m not going to beat you for it.” Ana looked at her, astonished. Svitlana grinned, and looked much younger for a second. Mischievous. “Not like your boyfriend.”

“Ah. yeah You saw my bruises. Don’t you think I’m weird? For liking that… sort of thing?”

Not very secret lesbians

“Heavens no. If it comes from a sexy, loving place…” Ana nodded. “The day you waltzed in with those marks on your legs, I saw your face. And the way you were walking. You really enjoyed earning those bruises. And getting them. So he’s doing what you want.”

Ana frowned. “No. I have to do what he wants. That’s how it works.”

“You think? The only thing about you that’s weird, Ana sweetie, is that you take men far too seriously. But that’s not very weird. Statistically. Everybody does that.”

Note

I’m happily being busy with my girl at the moment. But this is an extract from the novel I’m writing at the moment. 

Writing and money

I’m a reasonably good writer working hard on becoming better. Sometimes I’m sexy, sometimes I’m funny, and sometimes I get the human stuff about thoughts and emotions right. And when I read stuff I wrote, say five years ago, I usually think it’s good, but I can also see ways in which it could be a bit better. That means I’m getting better.

I have a non-fiction book on the historical, psychological and political issues raised by bdsm’s existence, and by the forming of a bdsm community right now.

I also have a bdsm novel, which is a literary novel with rom-com elements, set in the real world. That novel’s currently with beta readers. Once I get their feedback, and adapt and amend where necessary, those two books are off to agents and publishers, so they’d better watch out.   

When I said, “set in the real world”, I mean I don’t do vampires, werewolves or secret islands or dungeons, and, using the words “real world” in a different sense, I don’t do billionaires either. 

I’m currently working on a second novel, which is harder edged, though the bdsm incidents take place between adults who know what they’re doing and are doing it because they want to. The non-consensual aspect is where ordinary people get hammered by violence, racism and corruption. I’m working hard on that novel now, and I expect to have it finished by October. 

Butterflies are free. Unfortunately, good as butterflies are, they’re not the best things in life. If given money, I promise not to blow it on butterflies or cocaine.

With this blog, I guarantee to have four posts a week. Though I’m counting this post as one of them, which is cheating a little. My blog posts are mostly true stories of bdsm life, though the disgraceful long story that continues every Wednesday is most definitely not true.

Truth or fiction, my goal is to have it real, sexy, and funny, as life can be. When you find yourself doing life right.

I’m serious and passionate about some issues, but I think writers are entertainers first, and moralists and philosophers second, if at all. That’s one of the things I believe passionately

On this blog I’ve been writing a long story with the comically click-baity title, Humiliation of an ex-Nazi submissive, and that has many more episodes to go. However, I’m taking a break from it at the moment, because writing it takes a lot of mental focus. Right now I’m putting everything I have of that capacity into the novel I’m writing.

Fortunately, there are two stories I’ve been meaning to tell for a long time, which aren’t quite as demanding, and should be shorter. The first of those starts on Monday. Tune in! I think you’ll like it.  

 

Help me build one of these!

The reason I’m writing this is that I’m setting up a Hat-Tip Jar. I need money, to pay for the running of this blog, and to get to Eroticon in London in 2018. 

I don’t think I’ll put any content behind a pay-wall. I don’t want to run ads. But if you like what I’m writing, then please, chuck us some money. 

This hat-tip jar will exist soon. I’m a techno-klutz, and right now it’s late at night. But it’ll be here in the morning! 

Jerusalem Mortimer – among others – is on sale!

My first story sale is in print! And available in an e-book!

The story is called Desires. Gee, if you really loved me, you’d go buy the book it’s in.

You can buy it here. It’s available in paperback and as an e-book. I recommend the paperback because you can sit it on your shelf and take it down when you need to spank someone with it, or be spanked. 

Also, there are people who won’t have sex with you if there isn’t at least one book in your house. And in my experience Book Nerds Make Better Lovers.

The book is Identity, and it showcases a diverse collection of essays and stories by over twenty writers of sex fiction and non-fiction, and sex toy reviewers. It presents a range of talent from established writers and new writers, all of whom are coming to the 2017 Eroticon Conference in London. 

It’s a sex-positive anthology, moving from the heteronormative to show a truly representational cross-section of erotic identity. 

In this unique compilation, the central theme of identity is explored from many different angles. Some authors discuss their personal identity as writers, others how their fictional characters explore who they are through sex. Yet other writers examine the impact of the erotic identity, sexuality or personality and how this is celebrated or must remain hidden. 

As well as the amazing Jerusalem Mortimer, whose story really is rather hot, Identity features work by Velvl Ryder, Malin James, Eve Ray, Marie Rebelle, Meg-John Barker, Teresa Caves, sub-Bee, Emily Jacob, Jenny Guérin, Ella Scandal, Alun Norley, Ina Morata, Miss Ruby Rousson, cleareyedgirl, Heather Day, The Other Livvy, Zak Jane Keir, F.F. Sexton, Zoë King, Charlie Powell, BibulousOne, Emmeline Peaches and Girl on the Net. 

If you’re already reading them you’ll know that’s an amazing line-up. If you’re not, then this is an excellent place to start!