Saturday, September 13, 2014

Some questions I got asked (pt 1 of a possibly to be continued infrequent series)

Another really hectic week for me.  I wouldn’t describe myself as a social butterfly, but this was one of those weeks when I was out doing stuff for most of the week.  I just about kept pace with my #DailyWriting goals.  I fell behind with the Violated Hero 5 playthrough.  I’ll give that a burst over the weekend to finish it off.  In the meantime Najmi asked me a few questions over on the MGU forums and as I thought the answers might be of interest to other people who’ve read my books, I thought I’d post the whole thing up here.

Some questions I wanted to ask you:

>Do you think the succubi you have will fit well in MGQ
(Monster Girl Quest – MEH) ? What kind of fairy tale sex fantasy do you think your succubi will fit right in, if they're inserted? (Its obviously not MGE (Monster Girl Encyclopedia - MEH) with non-violent succubi pushing for co-existence with sex and love)

Definitely MGQ rather than MGE.  This is not surprising as some of my stories have been inspired by monster girls from that game.  They would fit into most of the same slots already used in the game.  The hell-space monster girls would cater to vore and other horror fetishes.  As for the more conventional succubi—some would drain their victims to death, others would fulfil similar roles to Alice and her generals.

>Why are you interested in succubi? What do you find fascinating about the perverted demons that would sneak into houses at night, have sex with men to steal a piece of their soul and semen? Do you love the fact that they are predators of men? The concept of a man eater? Why do you write about them?

Hehe, this one’s going to be fun.

I’ve always had an interest in horror femme fatales.  Perhaps the most famous scene is the one in Dracula where Harker encounters the three vampire brides for the first time (Coppola's film version wasn't perfect, but he nailed that scene).  Later inspiration came from Wicked City, which features a few sexy-weird demon girls.  I realised later that these scenes weren’t very common overall.  Often they didn’t progress much past the sexy femme fatale luring her victim in . . . and then fanging them in the neck or transforming into something horrible and ripping their heads off.  This is because they’re horror films and are aiming to hit different buttons in the audience than porn films.

There’s also a strange quirk of psychology with vampires.  Fangs sinking into a neck is a penetrative act.  Writing graphically about sex back in Stoker’s time was much more frowned upon, so they had their filthy foreign rotters penetrating innocent young maidens with fangs in the neck as metaphor for the . . . uh . . . other method of penetration.  Of course, it turned out quite a few young women liked the fantasy of being ravished by an exotic foreign count and the vampire became a popular staple of modern erotica.

Reverse the genders and it doesn’t work as well.  Women generally don’t penetrate men during sex, so the fangs in the flesh thing doesn’t have the same psychological undercurrents.  Hammer made a lot of horror films featuring sexy female vamps, but most of the time they were chasing the other girls.  Switch the genders and you want your female predator of men to be absorbing or engulfing (The talented Trudy Cooper of Oglaf highlights and lampoons this with respect to the weapons of famous Amazons of popular culture) to tap into the same deep-running psychological undercurrents.  This is something the makers of Wicked City understood fully, but I’ve rarely seen utilised in horror since.

That’s one strand.

The second strand involves more conventional erotica.  Femdom is a turn on for me.  I also think the classic dominatrix look with either tight leather or rubber is really sexy.  But as I looked more into BDSM I found it didn’t really appeal to me.  The dom-sub dynamics seemed far more important than the actual fucking.  My fantasy was for one of those hot dommes to push me back on bed, get on top and ride me so hard my brains fell out.  The other stuff seemed like irritating distractions from the sweaty sex stuff to me.  I’d make a lousy sub.

The term for this, I believe, is topping from the bottom.  Someone is playing the dominant role for the pleasure of the person underneath, and the person underneath is the one calling all the shots.  I’ve heard this really gets on the tits of most dommes as it torpedoes the whole dom-sub dynamic.

(It’s quite possible I’ve horribly misrepresented the BDSM scene here.  I’ve always liked the clothes and trappings but once I realised I’d be a horrible sub, I never ventured much deeper.  If you think I’ve got completely the wrong idea, please drop by in the comments as I’m fine with discussing this further to clear up any misperceptions.)

And after a lot of rambling background (told you this one was going to be fun) we get to succubi.  Succubi are another alluring horror femme fatale, but one where the seduction is likely to lead to sex.  There’s no tease here.  Most interpretations of the succubus have them drain the life/soul through fucking, so a good fucking is what their victim is going to get.  They don’t necessarily have to be femdom, but if you’re shy and awkward they’re going to power right through that reluctance, get on top and ride you so hard your brains fall out.  If you’re a shy and awkward man this is a damn hot fantasy.

Ah, but what about the drained-to-death or soul-sucked-out endings, you might be thinking.  That’s not so hot and also a little creepy.

It’s a requirement for good storytelling.  A scenario where plain dude is seduced by super-hot sexy chick and they go off for wild super-hot sex is a nice fantasy but a poor story.  There’s no conflict there and no grounding.  If super-hot sexy chick is that super-hot, why is she interested in plain Joe when she could go off with the super-hot sexy stud standing right next to him?  That breaks immersion.

And then we have succubi.  She’s not human.  Her desires are different.  This fixes the immersion problem.  Why is that super-hot sexy chick banging super-plain average Joe?  Because he’s lunch.  Or because she’s looking for something else.  Nicole, one of my succubus characters, prefers having sex with nice guys regardless of how they look because they taste better to her.

Because sex with most interpretations of the succubus is deadly it also adds the conflict necessary for a good story.  There’s the thrill of seduction and the thrill or sex, but there’s also the thrill of peril.  The protagonist is in danger here.  How are they going to get out of it?  Will they get out of it?  (Okay, so in most of my stories the answer is usually no, but I do try to throw the odd different ending in to mix up things a little).

I like writing about succubi (and other similar monster girls) because they’re the perfect monster for erotic horror.  And also because they’re underused or badly used.  If they’re used in horror, it’s usually seduction followed by transformation into monster and grisly death, generally because transformation into monster and blood all over the walls has more obvious shock value than dude slowly fading away with his succubus lover giving him gentle kisses on a bed.  This misses out on some cool psychological stuff.  If there’s a clean break between the sexy stuff and the shocking stuff, the audience knows when they’re supposed to be aroused and when they’re supposed to be horrified.  If the erotica starts to blur into the horror (and there are plenty of ways to make it ickier than dude slowly fading away) then the person reading/watching starts to wonder: “Should I be aroused, or horrified by this?” “This seems creepy, why am I still turned on?”  It messes with their heads.  Clive Barker is a master of this.

If you’re writing erotica, it’s also a smart move to write about what turns you on, and succubi are a massive turn on for me.

Hmm, I knew the answer to this one was going to be long, but I didn’t expect it to be quite as long as this.  Anyone still out there?

>Speaking of Koontz, are you ever going to tell us how a fat man with bunny slippers have a legion of succubi and monster girls at his command? Is he some warlock or something?

I know his origin.  It’s connected to another one of my regular characters.  It’s not written yet, but I’m planning to put it in a future collection.  I hope it catches people off guard.

>Your settings ARE grimdark, I don't even think you have heaven or angels in them, especially H-space and Phil's setting. Are you ever thinking about merging H-space with Phil's setting? It could be interesting to see military soldiers teleported in the castle that Rosa, Verdé, Honey etc live in or the Palace of Infernal Desires.

Can’t talk too much about that ;).  There have been hints.

>When Phil was brought to the castle and Verdé and Rosa were talking about hiding him from the others, did that mean Nÿte and the succubus "pretending" to be a little girl (Can't type her name) was going to outright kill Phil if the two found trespassing humans in their domain? The little girl must be fucking ancient! Oh my god she was amazing, MEH!

That was partly a plot shift.  The original idea was for Nÿte to be the ruler of a castle with a lot more succubi and Rosa and Verdé were going to keep Phil hidden from them.  Then the story took a different path (and a better one I think).

It also made sense with the new plot.  Had Phil shown any sign of weakness with Nÿte she would have sucked him dry.  Cέrμləa nearly destroyed his mind.  Rosa and Verdé knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t survive an encounter with either and tried to delay them so they could enjoy him for longer.

>Are you actually going to have demon slayers that can fight and kill succubi? From reading a lot of your stories, the odds are HEAVILY stacked against humans. Another issue with your stories is that its so one-sided. Humans CAN'T win in your settings. Whether it be an average joe, an asshole, or a competent soldier or demon slayer, they ALWAYS lose. When you write these erotic stories, are you writing it purely for fetish and enjoyment? Sex and fetish over plot and logic? This is the exact reason why your Succubus Summoning is so popular, we finally get a man that survives (sorta) instead of die and it goes into depth about Hell and the daemons. Though, its actually a warlock-in-training 18 year old virgin that survived while you kill off highly trained soldiers and demon slayers. Perhaps you should add a soldier that survived a succubus attack and is now hunting them, make him like Phil, being a long living character. It doesn't even have to be about him losing, just him trying to save men from succubi, but he gets there too late. It doesn't make sense for Koontz and Ann to command succubi, warlocks like Phil have them as pets for personal reasons, there's an entire school for warlocks, stirp clubs are ran by succubi unknown to the public, and Earth is actually part of Hell, well maybe. You REFUSE to create a countermeasure for all this, just because it will ruin your idea of an always dominant, perverted and malicous sex demon.

Eek, long question.  I’ll break this one up.

First: demon slayers + humans not being able to fight back.  This one’s awkward.  It’s where erotica clashes with other genres.  Most of my early stories are corrupted femdom fantasies.  If the dominatrix gets beaten up at the end it wrecks the fantasy.  That’s why so many of my early stories had the succubus completely overwhelming their victim – it’s the quintessential femdom fantasy.  They won’t stay that way.  I consider myself a horror writer as much as an erotica writer and I have a lot of plans.  Some of you might have noticed connections between some of my recurring characters.  There’s a larger story taking place in the background and each short story reveals a little piece of it.

And as for demon slayers—one of the stories in A Succubus for Remembrance could be seen as the origin story of a potential future demon slayer.  Any time I have a character left in play at the end of a story I think of ways they might return in future tales (Succubus Summoning came about because of Phil’s constant knack of not being dead at the end of a chapter).  I have a few characters like this now and you can be assured that when they come up against sex demons again they will be much more prepared.

There are actually lots of countermeasures, but it’s worth bearing in mind I’m focusing on the stories that feature the sexy Bad Ends.  In them the protagonist is often lured into one-on-one situations where the succubus’s supernatural charm abilities are most effective.  Humans might be puny, but there are a shit-ton of them and if they get riled up they’re good at making things dead.  Nicole versus single dude with a normal sex drive is going to end up with the dude as putty in her fingers.  Nicole versus an angry mob equals dead Nicole.  She knows this, which is why she’s very keen to stay hidden.  Same for most of the other succubi and monster girls.  As most of them feed on sex in some way it makes sense for them to hide out within the sex industry—strip clubs, brothels, massage parlours.  Plus, as most men generally don’t broadcast to the world when they’re planning to visit a bordello to pork a prostitute, it makes it very easier for the more ruthless succubi to “disappear” them without the authorities being any the wiser.

Hell-space is slightly different as there are a lot more succubi and other demons.  But it’s hard for them to cross the barrier to get to Earth unless someone opened a gateway first, and no-one would do that because it’s completely . . . oops.

>Are the succubi in your settings born from demon parents? Or do they take the semen from men for reproduction? Or do they transform human women into succubi like in MGQ?

Varies from demon to demon.  I don’t like going too deep into the background of some characters as I think it will spoil their mystery.  While I have used it in at least one story, I'm wary of overusing transformation of human women to make new succubi.  That was where some interpretations of vampire went wrong.  Instead of being a curse it became “please bite me so I can get my fancy vampire superpowers.”  I want to avoid falling into that trap if I can.

I have examples of both, but they’re all book exclusives off the top of my head—“Arachne’s Web” and “Hugh the Hero” for getting semen from men, and “Serving the Earth Mother” for a (extremely icky) transformation from human to succubus.

Oh, I have two more questions and they are about Nicole.

>Will you write a story about Nicole encountering a demon slayer? You seem to only have her seduce nervous virgins and assholes. A demon slayer just like the one from "Slayer vs. Succubus".

I’m not sure.  I did have a very early story idea that showed exactly what lengths she’d go to protect herself and make sure she stayed hidden.  I’m not sure I’ll use it now though.  I think quite a few people are attached to that character and I remember the disappointment when I wrote scenes showing both Verdé and Amanda in a more predatory light.  I think there’s an interesting story there, just need to figure out all the angles.

>How come she's the only actual character that can let men live, but your other succubi can't?

She’s not, actually.  Quite a few of my stories have ended with the succubus (or monster girl) letting the man go for one reason or another.  A lot are typical demons—humans are nothing more than cattle to be savoured and slurped up—but even those will let their prey go if it’s in their interests to do so.  I try to give my succubus characters different personalities and different moral codes to keep them interesting.  Nicole prefers to mask herself as an escort to take regular sips from her clientele rather than having to run from place to place as the bodies pile up.  But she has no qualms about killing if she feels it’s justified.  Verdé is very nice to the people she likes, but as a succubus she will snack on the occasional person because that’s what she is.

Some stories I don’t feel the need to get any more complex than: See human, kill human in sexy manner.  For others I like to hint that there’s more going on, that the succubus isn’t killing just because she’s feeds on sex and is hungry, but because they’re following a specific agenda.  That gives a bit more depth to the stories and I hope makes them more enjoyable.

Whew, that was a lot more than I intended to write.

If you haven’t checked out my writing before and this has piqued your interest, my books can be found at these links:

If you want to try before you buy, a lot of my stories can be found here in their raw form:

For regular readers, I hope this answered some of the questions you might have had (ideally without spoiling anything).  If you have any more, email me or drop them in the comments and once I get enough I’ll do this again at a later date.

Thanks to Najmi for the questions.


  1. Good explanation all in all. The one major thing I take issue with is your seeming belief/statement that succubi/monster girls draining men to death is required for good storytelling.

    I mean having gorgeous exotic females who depend on sex can work just as well with non-deadly results. Given for them what they get from the sex on a supernatural level is more important than looks, it is beleivable for them not to always go for the most attractive men.

    And then of course if they have the option to use magic to make the man more attractive over time, initial looks may not matter as much as any other aspects she may find attractive about him (taste, personality, simply being there at the right time). Then again I don't see the appeal of imagining even your average-guy character as unattractive to the point that it would be utterly unrealistic for a gorgeous woman to consider him.

    I mean take MGQ, yes most of the monsters are in theory capable of killing via sex (via exhausting the man if nothing else) but this is more due to societal and cultural issues in the games arising from conflicts between humans and monsters. Most every monster is just as capable of legitimately loving a human and sharing her life with him, while fucking him silly of course.

    I can't prove it, but I like to think the real heart in so many of the monster girls is one big reason that game became so popular. Inc contrast even the nicest of your girls are stuck with a blue and orange morality in a universe that apparently has NO happy endings for humans period (given it seems the end destiny of all human souls will be to get absorbed back into Hell).

    Heck it may not mean much (I know online opinions aren't the best gauges of quality) but my happy mantis-meets-man love story/drama Viridian Ninja actually won first place in a monthly reader's pick contest on literotica. I don't think my writing quality is a match for yours, so maybe the positive aspects helped?

    Of course if you're going for erotic horror then non deadly/dark results are harder to do, but good stories in other erotic genres can be done without making the monsters near-obligate killers.

    1. My bad for not being clearer. The succubi potentially draining a character to death is just one form of conflict. It's not the only way. I use that one because I like horror and it's a good way to put a character in peril and keep things sexy.

      Plenty of other ways to do it. Take Luka and Alice in MGQ. To start with they can't be together because Luka has to prove he's powerful enough (obstacle 1). And when he does by defeating Alice, Ilias shows up and threatens to wreck the world (obstacle 2).

    2. I see, that's reasonable.

  2. your bad ends are the best hydra :D
    anyways it was a nice read, as always cant wait to see more

  3. I'm actually curious as to whether you write any non-erotica stuff. I mean, obviously I love that stuff, but you're an excellent writer and I was wondering if you had anything that's more mainstream.

    1. I had ambitions to be a horror writer a while back. Had some stories published under another name in some small press magazines. Stepped away when the horror fiction market collapsed. Came back and found the fun again when I started writing for Literotica. I think it was probably good for me. I didn't really have a "thing" back then other than generic horror - now I have much better idea of what I want to write.

  4. It's sad that it is an underused genre. It's so rare.

    Not to give TMI, but I like how you sort of reversed the roles in Hugh the Hero, if you catch my drift; in regular erotica, particularly hentai, it's the other way around, and I was never able to get into it. You should post that story on Literotica. It's one of your best, in my opinion.

    1. I have to keep some stories back as exclusives to the books. Have to give people some motivation to buy them ;)

  5. I think there is scope to explore the ability of a succubus (or mimic monster girl?) to be able to assume the appearance of any woman they want to. Perhaps teamed up with the ability to explore the subconscious of the "victim" male, or the ability to sense arousal and adjust the appearance rapidly to achieve the ultimate fantasy figure for that individual. It could be "forbidden fruit", the wife of a friend or the sister of the victims own wife for example, or something more visceral, perhaps the victim himself isn't consciously aware of? This creates the ultimate dilemma of I know this thing might/will kill me, but maybe it's worth it? Subconscious desire versus conscious self-preservation.