Happy Wednesday! I’m posting this, and then I’ll read the others in between running around all day to get ready for vacation. So much to do, so little time!
Believe it or not, I’m near the end of writing Drumbeat. Just a few more chapters and some minor reworking of some scenes, and then it’s off to beta readers. At least the first part, anyway, while I clean up the second half. It’s hard not to let myself get distracted by Shiny New, which is now outlined and waiting patiently until I finish this one. For the handful of folks who read An Act of Devotion, the new project (Tree of Life) is about AJ’s friend Luke. But it’s 100% not a romance, not even if you squint. I do promise a happy ending, though.
Everyone wanted to know about Jamie’s piercings, so here it is. Fair warning, the snippet is long. Jamie’s body jewelry includes a few intimate places, which are obviously only visible to Cian because they’re…well. (For those who missed previous snippets, Cian is deaf but wears hearing aids. He’s not lip-reading here.)
WIPmath: 8/30/17 = 8 x (3 + 0) – (1 + 7) = 16 paragraphs
Tell me about all these, Cian signed, then touched the row of hoops in Jamie’s left ear and then the bar over his eyebrow. “What do you do with them when you’re at work?”
“I trade out my usual for ones that are less obvious. They let me keep them because I don’t work in the kitchen.”
It made sense. Cian leaned in and kissed each of Jamie’s angel bites and then his lips. “I love these. How did you decide to get them?”
Jamie didn’t answer for a moment. Eventually he sat up. “I have one piercing for every break-up.” He smiled and tugged one earlobe. “My first. Got them when my high school boyfriend broke my heart.” Jamie laughed. “He didn’t want me, but suddenly I had all these girls all over me.”
Cian laughed too. Lucky you!
Jamie nudged him with his toe, but he was still smiling. “Then this one.” He fiddled with the eyebrow bar. “I dated that guy for two weeks before we figured out it was never going to work.”
“Why not?” Cian wanted to know.
“We were on set together. He was a cameraman. The way he tells it, he was into me emotionally, but anything past kissing and he couldn’t do it. He was so upset, not wanting to hurt me. Last I knew, he’d gotten engaged to one of my costars.”
“Maybe you opened his mind,” Cian suggested.
“Maybe,” Jamie agreed. He shrugged and moved on to touching the hoops. “All the rest—” He wouldn’t meet Cian’s gaze for a moment, and Cian saw the way his eyes shimmered. “They’re all from the same guy, except this one.” He touched the daith. “It’s new, and I’m not sure it was really a break-up. We weren’t official.”
“The same guy?” Cian blinked. That was a lot of breaking up.
“He hated them. I would get one done and tell myself it was the last time. We’d be apart for a week, two at most, and then he’d grovel, or I’d call and beg.”
It clicked. “The one I saw you with at the engagement party.”
“Yes.” Jamie closed his eyes briefly when his finger came to rest on the pubic studs. “When he saw these, he stopped us mid-sex. Wouldn’t touch me for two weeks after that.” He swallowed visibly and flicked his PA. “He told me if I ever got this one, I’d never see him again. I waited a month after our last split, and then I got it. I had to be sure he was never coming back.”
“Did it work?”
Jamie took a while before he answered. He looked like there was a lot there, hiding just below the surface. At last he said, “I haven’t seen him in more than six months.”
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Wow. *Wow!*
I think this might be my favourite scene of yours so far—not because of the piercings per se. The trust, the intimacy, the story of the different piercings…perfection. It’s also great to see these two together finally (and so worth the wait).
As for that last line? F*ing music to my (multiply pierced) ears!
So…I possibly find piercings to be just about the sexiest thing. I like tats, but piercings? Yeah, I’ve had a fascination with them since I was a teenager. Strange that the only thing I have done is my ears, but chalk that up to things I’m not putting here in the comments. This is a bit of wish-fulfillment, I think—I gave Jamie the ones I like best. (My last editor commented that I have a real thing for guys with pierced ears. I don’t think I told her that I have a thing for *anyone* with piercings, LOL.)
Anyway, I love this scene too, and how it ends. It’s not how most people might imagine it would go.
What detailed reasons to get piercings… almost like checks in a book. But piercings and I… we don’t get along. I had two in each ear and a cartilage piercing at one point, but the cartilage never healed (I gave it 18 mths) and I seem to be allergic to every piece of metal I put through my body… including gold, silver, and surgical steel. At this point I’ve given up on them. Tattoos, however. *grins* Four. I’d be covered in them if money was no object–meaning sleeves on both arms, down the legs… I love three of my tattoos and the last I’m getting redone this fall. It’s not that the tat is bad, rather, it just doesn’t represent who I am anymore That’ll probably be the last work I get done. Why? I’m nearing fifty, and thing are beginning to, er, sag a bit.
Piercings and/or tattoos are an individual choice. But at least piercings, generally speaking, can be taken out and forgotten about if the owner wishes. Tats, however… I know they’re experimenting with ones that last a few years then fade away. But, but…. guess I’m old school on that one. That’s why I always advise people to make careful tattoo choices. I told my children four rules 1) no one’s name unless it is to honor them after they die 2) nothing you can’t cover to look professional 3) nothing on your face… and… 4) Always use a licensed professional. Sons took note, but daughter… her first tattoo was her boyfriend of two week’s name, (they broke up a week later) her second was a star high on her right cheek, and her third was done in an illegal shop and the tattoo got really infected. *sigh*
*looks back at what she’s written laughs* sorry. This is a good Snippet. I do like the reasons Jamie gives.
I enjoy other people’s tattoos and the reasons they chose them. I was going to get one and ended up deciding not to because I couldn’t think of something I wanted to have forever or a place I wanted to put it. I’m considering more piercings, but…money. There are things I need more. :/
Because I’m a semi-terrible person, whenever I see a group of cisgender straight women say they think something is “ugly” or they don’t like it in their gay books, I’m driven to find a way to put it in a novel.** For example, the thing I mentioned last night about not liking M/F sex in a “M/M” book. Or how I generally tend not to write polyamory as closed triads/quads. Or the time I wrote a femme genderqueer character after a long, nasty thread about how “gross” feminine guys are. In this case, a reader had a big rant about how awful piercings are, followed by lots of “they’re fine unless they’re in [fill in body part/location].” So I went with it and gave my character lots of them, including the PA (which I personally like, but I get that it’s not to everyone’s taste).
**Real-world things that actual people do. If someone says they find lesbian alien tentacle erotica squicky, I’m not going to start writing it just because of that. To my knowledge, I have no one in my life who identifies as a tentacled lesbian alien. The other things, though—they make me wonder if those same women feel that way about real people when they talk about fictional characters.
Love the story behind Jamie’s piercings(and that last line, absolutely great).
Thank you! Though I wouldn’t get to comfortable in Jamie’s last statement…
That’s awesome that you are almost done your story!!! Best wishes on your final stretch!!! I am not done my manuscript yet (still 25-30% left to go) but the thought of sending it out to beta-readers terrifies me haha…
I absolutely love this intimate moment between Cian and Jamie. Wondering if the guy responsible for all those break-ups is the emotionally abusive boyfriend from previous snippets…. if that is the case, I hope that Cian will help heal Jamie’s heart. So interesting to read about Jamie’s piercings 🙂
What a marvelous weaving of character detail, description, and plot development all in Cian’s piercings! I’m drawn in by the details, enchanted by Cian’s story behind each piercing and Cian himself, only to shiver in excitement at the tension rising at the revelation that there’s a recurring reason behind most of the piercings and he’s still out there.