It's not Photo Tuesday Tease, But I had to share

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Originally uploaded by photo_place

Isn't this fantastic? There is so much mood & tenderness in this shot! It's from flicker, taken by photo_place.

Photo Tuesday Tease: The Slow Unzip

Today's photo Tuesday Tease is a photo of Ali Stephens taken by Michael Thompson. (It will appear in the February issue of Allure Magazine.)

Is there anything like the slow unzip? And can the slow unzip come at a better time than during a passionate kiss? The sound, the sensation of the clothes falling away...

*sigh*

Romance on Ice

Last night my husband and I were lounging on the couch and looking for something to watch since our usual Simpsons/Family Guy hour was smoked by football. We ended up watching ice dancing.

The reigning champs, Meryl Davis and Charlie White danced to Billie Jean. I was so swept away by the pair, I had to check out their winning Phantom performance on you tube.


Oh. My. God.

It doesn't hurt, of course, that Charlie White bears an uncanny resemblance to my first celebrity crush...I'll leave that one up to your imagination rather than date myself too much...

I'll definably be tuning in for the Olympics now & hoping to find some more inspiration for stories!

Photo Tuesday Tease: Blindfolded

I gotta make this one short. I'm moving the day after tomorrow and things are down to the wire: boxes & furniture scattered and piled in every direction!

But here's the photo Tuesday tease...

BLINDFOLDED!

Removing a sense heightens all the others...but the blindfold adds even more than that. There is also the anticipation. What's coming and from where? (or from whom if you are really in an adventurous mood!)

The gift of the blindfold is sensation...it's all you can worry about, all you an experience, when you aren't spurred to reflection by your eyes.

I like this pic because she seems to be testing out the experience. Her head is tilted as if to say... humm, this could be interesting. The blindfold itself adds to the fun. Silk or Satin, it's whispery touch is of itself a sensual experience....

Photo Tuesday Tease: The Car Kiss

I'm trying to get into the habit of blogging regularly, although for now it seems like writing letters to myself that simply happen to be posted in public. (Though writing posts has helped crystallize the experience of "being" Tess & wanting to put all I've got into this part of my writing life.)

I'm ready to try a regular feature Photo Tuesday Tease. I'll confess it's not my first attempt. I took down "Under-Appreciated Body Part Day" because they sounded silly (although I did LOVE the one about the inner wrist--maybe I'll rework that one sometime).

ANYWAY, I have a few Romantic/Erotic/Suggestive/Sex-positive (though fairly tame) pics that I've gathered from here and there (mostly tumblr). For the next two months at least, I'm going to try a Photo Tuesday Tease. I'll post a pic and a few words about the story it creates for me. If you are reading, please feel free to comment or post your own story.

I think this shot is hot because it looks like a couple that simply cannot keep their hands off one another. You can almost feel the heat between them. Is he whispering something in her ear as he draws down her shawl? The way she is stretching back her arm makes me think she is fully experiencing the sensations of the moment: the weight of her earrings as they dangle forward, the brush of his hand against her back....


Please Note: If the pic doesn't show it's creator, then the creator wasn't listed when I found it. If you see a shot, however, that is copyrighted, please let me know and I'll take it down immediately.

free verse refections

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

--William Carlos Williams

This poem infuriated me in high school; I wasn't much for subtleties. Lately, though, I find myself thinking about it from time to time. It has a beautiful simplicity, and a stark truth I never could have grasped then: we often take for granted the things most important. (Ever try and remove yard waste without a wheel barrow?) Those things most important we forget to honor, we leave in the rain, we fail to notice...at least until something contrasts with it.

Writing erotica has been the "white" to my "red"--the thing that made me notice things I've taken for granted...from the feel of a nylon stocking to the erotic possibilities of secret-sharing. It's a bit of a surprise, but not an unwelcome one.

And since I was appreciating subtleties, I decided to poke around the internet and read some other poets who infuriated me. I found this gem by ee cummings. (And I'm certain if this one was included in the anthology, I would have had ALOT more interest in free verse!)

i like my body when it is with your body.

It is so quite a new thing. Muscles better

and nerves more. i like your body. i like

what it does, i like its hows. i like to feel

the spine of your body and its bones, and

the trembling -firm-smooth ness and which

i will again and again and again kiss, i like

kissing this and that of you, i like, slowly

stroking the, shocking fuzz of your

electric fur, and what-is-it comes over

parting flesh . . . . And eyes big

love-crumbs, and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

--ee cummings