Guest Post & Giveaway with Cari Z

I am Excited to have the wonderful Cari Z on the blog today who was nice enough to even bring a giveaway. Changing Worlds is the sequel to Opening Worlds one of my fave stories in Wild Passions Anthology. So when I say I am EXCITED, I freaking mean it! Do give a warm welcome to Cari Z.

Title: Sex With Aliens: How Much Weird Is Still Sexy?


Sex is an act that inherently lends itself to a certain amount of strange.  When you’re physically and emotionally running hot, you say and do things that you’d probably rethink in the bright light of day.  People can get into a lot of interesting sexual scenarios all on our same-species own, but what do you do when you throw an alien into the mix?  How weird do you go?  How weird should you go?

There’s a “difference metric” inside my head, a special gauge for every story that measures levels of strange versus familiarity.  If I tip too far to one side, the strange and new starts to become overwhelming, and sweeps the story up into something that people read and go, “Ugh, where did that come from?”  Been there, done that, got the dubious comments.  On the other hand, God save me from the demon of banality, when there’s so much vanilla that you have to wade through it to find vague little islands of interest popping up in the tale.  Every sex act I write is a balance between the two sides, and with aliens thrown into the mix, it becomes a lot more fun fast.

I mean, it’s just a matter of how kinky you want to go, right?  How out there can you imagine?  Aliens can be anything.  Tentacles, fur, feathers.  Secretions, self-lubricating, slimy.  Buzzing, vibrating, rippling, bulging, compressing, exploding… wait, wait.  This is a person, not a sex toy.  Or a bomb.  Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have anything explode.  And slime, yeah, that might not be the way to go. The sex can’t be bizarre just because there’s the capacity for bizarreness: it has to work physically, it has to be sexy, and it has to fit the story.

For the purposes of Changing Worlds I gave my aliens, the Perel, similar enough physiology to humans that I didn’t alter too much about the act itself.  They’ve got, as my human hero Jason puts it, “familiar parts”.  They’re also empathic, which means that they know what their lovers want, and they’ve got quills running up their spines, which means that their lovers have a direct investment in giving them what they want if they want to avoid getting perforated—in the bad way, that is.  Perels purr and grunt and growl like a human would, but their voices are so guttural that it’s shocking the first time you hear one of them come.  They’re used to polygamous, polyamorous relationships that primarily exist between males, since there are so many more males than females on their home planet of Perelan.  You want a threesome, a foursome, maybe a tensome?  Heck, let’s make it a baker’s dozen and just move from the bed to the floor!

One of the things that sets my Perel protagonist, Ferran, apart from his kind is his desire for a single spouse.  He isn’t interested in fucking a lot of people; he’s interested in fucking one person, the human he’s chosen and is married to, despite significant opposition from his own people.  Ferran and Jason are a novelty in every way to the other Perels, and Changing Worlds explores that dynamic in an environment where, as long as you marry who you’re supposed to and do what’s expected of you, sex can be almost anything you can imagine.  But even when you defy those expectations and become the first inter-species couple on a planet of xenophobes, the sex is still pretty awesome. :)

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Excerpt from Changing Worlds

He took the suit out and laid it on the bed; then he just stood there and stared at it. Once he put that suit on, it would become his new normal. Jason already knew that he would never go back to his uniforms, but he hadn’t thought it would be so hard to let go of them either. After a moment, Ferran stepped in and slowly unfastened Jason’s shirt, pulling it back off his shoulders and tossing it away. He did the same with Jason’s pants, sliding them down his legs and off, getting rid of the shoes first. Every movement was deliberate: not really sensuous, but decidedly intimate.

Ferran’s cool hands traced up Jason’s shins, over his knees and hips, and across his abdomen as Ferran stood again. Goosebumps sprang to life over Jason’s whole body, accentuated in the slightly chill air of their bedroom. Ferran exhaled against the base of Jason’s throat, warming him, before he turned to the green suit. He redressed Jason with the same care he’d used undressing him, carefully straightening the collar and smoothing out the sleeves before he attached Giselle’s insignia to the unmarked shoulder.

Once everything was done, he stepped close and embraced Jason in the Perel way. Their right temples touched, and each of their right hands cupped the side of the other’s face, gentle and intimate. They kept the rest of their bodies at a slight distance, feeling the heat of each other, but nothing else.

“I love you,” Jason said, turning his face just far enough to kiss the edge of Ferran’s cheek. For some reason, he felt it was important to ensure that his lover had those words at the forefront of his mind before they tackled what came next.

“I love you,” Ferran replied. “You first. You always.”

 “Good.” Jason kissed him again briefly before he pulled back. “Ready for our grand entrance?”

“Ready.”

Giveaway

~Leave a comment on this post for your chance of a copy of Changing Worlds

~Include your email

~Must be 18yrs or older

~Giveaway runs until May 26th 11:59pm EST