A warm welcome to VJ Summers visiting Love Bytes on the start of the Light A Candle Blog Tour

Welcome VJ!

In the past, when people have asked where I’d got the inspiration to write BDSM came from, I related a story of how author Lora Leigh visited my writing group and challenged us to do something out of our comfort zone. My co-author chose BDSM. I went with voyeurism, and somehow managed to work a m/m scene in there, pushing *my* envelope until it shredded! But recently, while working in the Hoarder’s Hell that is my mother’s basement, I found a big box of Barbie dolls (if you’re looking for a circa 1977-78 Barbie Dream House, very good shape w some furnishings, hit me up, lol!), and it jarred a memory I’d buried for decades. I played w dolls long after most of my neighborhood friends (who were, to be fair, a couple years older than me) had put them up. And I had them *all*. Superstar Barbie… Malibu Barbie… Barbie with hair to her knees… I even had the “Darcy Doll”, who could do splits the *wide* way (and could thus straddle… stuff). Only one friend – let’s call her Lindsay – was still as enamored with making up elaborate stories about Barbie and her cohorts as I was, and we’d spend hours in her room making up convoluted stories where our lone Ken doll had to find a way to woo various ladies, or our ladies competed viciously for poor, lonely, naked Ken’s affection. The story we ended up acting out most frequently involved Barbie 1, Barbie 2, and Barbie 3 in Ken’s basement – which was unfinished, with rough concrete walls and minimal furniture. (Do you see where I’m going here?) Ken would put his ladies in the most improbable positions and demand they not move – the last Barbie standing “won” the right to go to his bed. After a while, merely contorting the girls into physically impossible positions wasn’t enough for Master Ken (because, yeah, “Master” and “Sir” had worked its way into our scenarios at this point – I can only assume from Lindsay, because it was nothing even in my orbit). No, now we were imagining some sort of weights, attached to clothes pins or something, clipped to the girl’s; nipple and between their legs. Whichever doll could “stand the pain the longest” won the right to be with Sir. (Again, I can’t imagine this was my invention – in fact I remember saying “who’d want to have sex when they were all sore *down there*?” and Lindsay saying, “Once the weights are unclipped, it’ll make everything even more intense.” In retrospect, I wonder what Lindsay’s folks got up to when they thought the kids were asleep…) Eventually, as kids do, Lindsay and outgrew our dolls, and once I changed schools, we grew apart. Through the years the memories of those elaborate, kinky Barbie BDSM stories faded into the mists of time and were replaced by series romances and historical “bodice rippers”. Looking back now, though, as I research BDSM for my writing, and become more and more intrigued with the lifestyle on a personal level, I see the seeds of that interest, planted innocently enough during typical child’s play. I wonder if it was a coincidence, or did Lindsay sense something in me – a kindred, or perhaps complimentary spirit? Whatever the answer, whatever the circuitous route I’ve taken to get here, I’ve come to have a deep respect for the BDSM community and hope my stories do justice to not only the kinksters, but to those for whom the lifestyle is a deeply emotional, even spiritual, core of their beings.

Blurb

Will broke Dusty’s heart their senior year. One unexpected moment of passion between them, and Will freaked out. Not only wasn’t he gay, but he wasn’t kinky either—or so he insisted to Dusty. Their long friendship ended, and Dusty was left with only bittersweet memories of their last movie night together.

Ten years later, out as gay and a Dom, Will auditions for membership at Club Deviant, only to find that he’s been assigned an all-too-familiar submissive. His scene with Dustin feels like fate, and he’s determined to get back what they once had—and more.

Dustin had buried the pain of rejection deep, but playing with Will conjures all his memories of that one electric moment they shared and the friendship it destroyed. He’s built walls around his heart high enough to keep out the Trojan Army, but together, he and Will may find the courage to move beyond their past and face their future together.

When not working the EDJfH (Evil Day Job from Hell), obsessing over whether her parents are getting enough to eat, obsessing that her kid is sexting the boyfriend, making coffee, drinking coffee, or feeding the two cats who allow her to live with them, VJ can be found reading or writing erotic romance—either solo as m/m author VJ Summers, or as the shorter, more quiet half of the “Violet Summers” writing team (the tall half is Sierra Summers).

VJ loves to hear from readers! You can find her at https://vjsummersandsmut.wordpress.com/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/VJsSmut.

Every comment on this blog tour enters you in a drawing for a $15 Riptide store credit. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on May 23. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Don’t forget to add your email so we can contact you if you win!