My first story with THE SMUT MILL on Medium has just been published!
This is a fun one with lots of action and an emotional twist that I enjoyed writing.
Follow the link to read the story and if you’re on Medium make sure to follow The Smut Mill.
So…
After years of thinking about it, I started a Medium Page. It took me a while to get to it but it looks like it will be a fun place to write as well as expand my readers base.
Anyhow, here’s the link to my first story. I hope you enjoy it.
This is a section from my upcoming short story collection entitled “Shhh… It’s almost 4 A.M.” I hope to get this one out in the first part of next year. It’s the opening of the story so the relationships of the characters and what’s going on in their lives is establish.
Thanks for taking the time to enjoy the snippet from my upcoming WIP.
The vacant screen of his digit audio workstation mocks him.
Rowan took this gig mainly for the challenge. By the description it seemed like an ease job. Score a short film for a festival screening. Easy in and easy out but this has been anything but easy.
This has transformed into one of those nightmare jobs he’s fought hard to avoid. For the amount of money they’re paying, he can’t drop everything just to deal with this megalomaniac producer slash, director slash, lead actor, slash whatever the hell other jobs he’s claimed because he’s so fucking difficult to work with.
If this was due to tension caused by creative differences it might be somewhat understandable. That was not the case. This jackass had no idea what he wanted musically and hated everything Rowan has created.
“Can you give me some examples of songs or soundtracks you’d like this to sound like?”
“Scorsese!”
“Okay? Which film?”
“You watched my film. Which one do you think?”
The fact he places his under exposed, heavy-handed dialogue, lacking character development with no semblance of plot short film on the same level as anything Martin Scorsese has done was laughable. At one point, Rowan lowered the pitch to the title sequence for Raging Bull and sent it to him just to see his reaction.
“What the hell this shit?”
“Scorsese, just like you asked.”
“Well, this is bullshit!”
It’s starting to feel like this guy wants to complain about everything so he could justify not to paying. However, the contract clearly stated, with all legal implications, the only way that could happen would be if Rowan quit. Now, as he sits in front of the blank screen, Rowan weighs if leaving this project is the best thing for him to do.
On top of that, his blood still boils from the conversation he just had with the director less than an hour ago.
“Dude, it’s fucking three o’clock in the fucking morning!?!”
It took everything in his power not to cuss this guy out and walk away but he didn’t want to bother his neighbors. That’s the problem with working freelance gigs. Clients want filet mignon at McDonald’s prices. It’s the reason why Rowan doesn’t work without a signed contract. That still doesn’t stop them from calling you at any time of the day in some cocaine induced, drunken fit of inspiration that lacks both focus and creativity.
Rowan sits at his desk in the living room, attempting to focus by taking deep breaths but nothing works. He grabs his Bluetooth headphones, puts them on, opens up his jazz playlist, and lies down on the couch. He’s too angry to compose but maybe listening to the masters do their thing will inspire him.
Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue plays. It’s one of Rowan’s favorite albums. It’s perfect for both relaxation and inspiration. In fact, a poster of Miles, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and Bill Evans during the recording of the album hangs on the wall above his couch. The first track ‘So What’ crawls into his ears. The piano and bass instantly smooth him. The title alone gives him joy. If he walks away from the hellish gig so what? He’s created some great tunes he can use for other projects.
Rowan’s eyelids become heavy. He slowly blinks while staring at the base of the frame of the poster. Sleep is finally overcoming him when he notices the poster move. It was slight. Maybe from a mild earthquake several miles away? As long as he’s lived in Los Angeles, these events no longer shock him. Then, the poster moves again. This time bouncing minimally from the wall in a somewhat erratic rhythm. It breaks the tempo of the music and he can’t block it out. Whatever’s going on, it’s happening in the apartment next to him. The surge of anger that had almost left his body returns. Rowan rips his headphones off, annoyed at the disturbance. What the hell could they be doing at this time in the morning? He prepares to bang on the wall to let his neighbors know to keep it down when a low muffled moan creeps through the wall.
He waits for a moment. Another moan comes, this one deeper than the first. Now, he’s intrigued and places his ear against the wall. Next a soft thud, followed by a series of a rhythmic squeaks, punctuated by what he can only discern as a male voice encapsulated in the throes of passion.
As normal as this should be, Rowan couldn’t help but picture his next door neighbors. They were a married couple and if it’s true that opposites attract, these two would be mascots.
Alex was a barrel chested, heavily tattooed, towering figure. At first sight he gave off ex-con energy to Rowan but he later found out that he was stunt coordinator for one of the major studios. He knew it was Alex’s voice but what he couldn’t compute was the fact that he was actually having sex with is wife, Camila.
From the first time he met her, Rowan could best describe her as mousy. Her lithe frame appeared as if she would easily be crushed under Alex’s size. She was attractive in that uptight librarian type of way with her black cat-eye glasses and long brunette hair always tied up in a bun.
In the year plus they’ve lived next to each other they’ve probably said no more than a few words. In fact, the first time they met was in the elevator. She was already in there when he stopped the door so he could grab a few things from his car in the garage. When she saw him, she jumped and plastered herself against the wall. Then, in an action that he thought was strange, she hit the button for the next floor, even though the button for the garage was illuminated that she had obviously pressed, and rushed by him nervously mumbling to herself. He first thought she has afraid of African-American men but Alex assured him that she wasn’t racist but Rowan still had his suspicions.
Rowan never viewed her as a sexual person. She was always so stoic in public, even with Alex. In all honesty he didn’t think too much about their relationship. He was cordial whenever he saw them and they mostly made little effort to know each other outside of the pleasantries of living next to each other.
Rowan pressed his ear tighter against the wall. The fact he hasn’t heard Camila’s voice he finds typical. He pictures her laying there, probably with her body covered as much as possible in an oversized shirt as Alex pounds away hoping to create some sort of verbal reaction from his wife.
“Jesus,” Rowan whispers to himself as the banging on the wall grows more intense. The walls of these apartments are pretty well sound proofed so the fact he can hear anything is amazing. He can’t get the image of Camila laying there, taking everything Alex can throw into her out of his mind and soon his erection follows.
A part of him feels wrong for listening but the stress of what he’s going through takes over. What harm could it do? He teases the head of his cock through his boxers, timing his strokes to the banging of the wall. Then, unexpectedly, Camila’s voice breaks through.
“That’s right, baby. Open that asshole up for Mommy.”
‘What the fuck?’ Rowan thinks. Did he really hear Camila say that?
“You love it when I pound your ass, don’t you? Tell me how much you love it, Alex?”
The intensity of her voice was as clear as if they were in the room with him. Rowan couldn’t wrap his head around the timid woman he’s witnessed in the hallway being so assertive. However, the thing that shocked him the most was the way this was turning him on. Soon, Rowan’s cock achieves a level of hardness he hasn’t felt in years. He vigorously strokes himself, feeding off the energy in the opposing room. No longer caring about the morality of what he’s doing, he just craves release. The banging from next door crescendos, as does the verbal expressions of pleasure, and soon Rowan comes hard and releases a high pitched groan of satisfaction.
He clutches his still engorged cock, doing his best to make sure none of his ejaculate spills on the cushions and realizes everything has gone silent.
No panting. No postcoital sighs. Just pure, eerie, silence.
Had they heard him? That thought sent chills up his spine. He does his best to get off the couch without making a sound. Anxiety ravishes his body as he slowly backs towards his bedroom. All he can think about is how he can avoid them as much as possible until they can both forget what happened this morning.
Nervous tremors kept him up. The best thing he could do was grab his laptop and head to his favorite coffee shop to work. He knew it would be a couple of hours before Camila and Alex would leave. He subconsciously knew their schedule by the sound of their door opening and closing. If he’s quiet he could slip away without them knowing.
He closes his front door and softly rushes past their door. His heart pounds in his ears as he turns the corner. The swoosh of the doors opening allows him to give a sigh of relief. It feels like he’s made a safe getaway. His body relaxes as the door starts to close when a petite hand reaches in. Camila stands there in a bathrobe with a laundry cart in tow. She steps in, presses button for the basement without saying a word to him, and they both make their decent.
The silence is killing him. It’s too much for him to take and his legs fidget as his nerves are a wreck.
“Did you enjoy yourself this morning?”
The directness of her question shocks Rowan.
“I… I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he stammers.
He can’t find the strength to look at her and directs his focus on the floor. From his peripheral vision he sees Camila shaking her head in disapproval. Then, out of nowhere, she reaches over, punches the emergency stop button, and steps to him. The aggressive nature of her movements freaks him out enough that if she had been a man he would’ve thrown a punch.
“I hate being lied to.” Camila takes a step forward. Rowan jumps back, slamming into the wall in a complete reverse of the first time they met. “I bet you thought it was me getting fucked didn’t you? Then when you heard Alex moan… I bet you got harder than you’ve ever been in your life.”
Rowan can’t handle how accurate she is and her straightforwardness has his hard on returning with a vengeance. She takes a glance down, notices the bulge in his pants, smirks, and then flips her head back to him.
“You whine like a little bitch when you come. I didn’t know that until this morning.” She delivers a giggle that feels like it’s on the edge of being sinister. “Don’t worry, Alex does the same thing when I have a good stiff dick deep in his ass.”
She switches to being coy. Rowan would have never guessed this vixen resided behind all that vintage 50’s chic.
“Next time, rather than jerking off alone in your living room like a degenerate, just knock lightly on the wall come over and join us, pervert.”
She reaches into the pocket of her robe, grabs something, and then slowly places her hand in Rowan’s front pocket. Her fingers brush against his turgid dick as she deliberately applies pressure. A few more seconds of this and Rowan feels like he’ll explode.
“Or you can just call? I just gave you my number. Don’t worry. Alex is excited. I’ve been trying to convince him about doing something like this ever since I met you.”
She steps into him and takes a firm grip of his cock through his pants. Her lips are inches away from his forcing Rowan to hyperventilate with excitement.
“Just think about it.”
Their eyes lock. She tightens her grasp on his dick. He feels the urge to lean in and kiss her but the elevator comes to a stop. They quickly separate as an elderly woman and her wire haired terrier get on the elevator.
Rowan’s forehead drips with sweat. Camila returns to her usual meek self as if nothing’s happened. When the elevator stops at the garage Rowan rushes out.
“Have a good day, Rowan. Don’t be a stranger,” Camila states.
The doors close. Rowan stands there alone, stunned about what happened. The one thing he knows for sure is that he won’t be able to avoid Camila and Alex for too long.
The pointed edges of the frigid aluminum shop table dug into his shoulders. A combination of coarse black feathers intertwined with the remnants of her molted talons locked him tight against the surface. Any attempt he’d made to move up to this point had been futile.
If he’d known six months ago while fighting through a drunken bout of depression that saving a wounded crow from being run over would lead to this, he might not have been so eager to save her. Then again, with the bond they’ve created, it would be nearly impossible to picture his life without her.
The air was tinged with the metallic scent of fresh blood. Her howls of pain still echoed through the cinder block walls of the sub basement. The fact that his neck was strapped down to the table along with the rest of his body only left him with the sounds of her transformation and the violent shadows cast against the wall from the bare ceiling lights to inform him of what was happening.
At times it was too painful to watch. When he did look he couldn’t believe his eyes. What he’d witnessed was so incomprehensible that his soul trembled with both terror and anticipation. He had no point of reference for this. He could only track the events that led him down here tonight and hope that maybe, things were not as they appeared.
He never intended to keep her as a pet. His only goal was to give this crow a fighting chance to survive. The more he read about crow behavior the more he understood how difficult that could be. The fight she gave him when he picked up her broken body from the street let him know she had the will to survive. Even the veterinarian he took her to in order access the damage to her body suggested they euthanize her but he refused. The chance this bird had to be reintroduced in the wild was slim but it was a risk he was willing to take.
Due to her severely broken wings and the damage to her legs the trust they formed was essential to both of their survival. Weeks of bloody knuckles from her attacks as he was trying to feed her soon transformed into mutual respect and understanding. She gave him a purpose. The emotional elements that plagued him he redirected towards her survival and soon the intelligence of her breed of bird was on full display.
She could read his mood better than any human he’s ever encountered. Her ability to display empathy was unique. Their method of communicating through gestures and sounds felt as if they had created a language of their own. In his heart he knew this was temporary but her exquisite ability to read him made things difficult. She was a wild animal, something that was never meant to be tamed to the point where he refused to give her a name until he felt ridiculous trying to avoid it.
“What about Vina?”
She cocked her neck to the side and flapped her still healing wings in a display of excitement that allowed that name to stick.
As she got stronger, he did his best to reintroduce her to the wild by keeping his human contact to a minimum but she wouldn’t let him go. He’d take her to a park, miles away from where he lived, and released her only to find her waiting for him on his windowsill when he returned. As much as he wished to give her a normal existence away from him, she kept coming back but he refused to cage her. His dedication was to her freedom and if she chose to return he’d be willing to receive her with open arms. He knew crow’s mated for life and he hoped she’d find a mate and eventually live the life she was destined to live.
He had no idea the mate she would choose was him.
It had been weeks since he last saw her. The first night she didn’t return, he was worried. Those feelings prevailed until he finally reached a sense of calm, through waves of sadness, until he reached a level of acceptance.
What he hadn’t realized was she had returned but never made her presence known. Vina processed his wants and needs through her observations through his window. Every private craving he indulged in, his proclivities towards being dominated by a strong female presence as he scanned the web for the perfect images to release his tensions… she’d seen all of it from a dark perch after he felt that she wouldn’t return and he stopped looking for her.
Her eyes consumed every storks he gave himself. Every moan of ecstasy that crawled from his mouth. The immense pleasure he gave himself which would be followed by intense sleep. Up until this point, her purpose had not been revealed until a spiritual homing instinct lead her back to his apartment tonight.
“Vina,” he called out as she beat her wings against the window forcing him to open it. She flew in and headed directly to the front door and scratched he claws against the wood.
“Follow me,” she cooed softly.
Normally, he would’ve been shocked but a crows ability to mimic allowed him not to question things too much. He opened the door and followed her in a trance until they reached the basement.
At the end of the hallways was a thick metal door. A remnant of when buildings had bomb shelters in the 1950’s due to the threat of a possible nuclear attack. He watched in awe as she diligently observed the old rusty padlock and made quick work, with her beak, to break the ages of rust that had kept this door shut to the world and whatever contents that were behind it.
She made a gesture with her head that could only be understood that she was asking him to open it. He used all of his strength to pull open the door when the hard smell of decay pierced his being and he passed out.
Now, as he lay strapped to this table by the physical elements of her bird state he waited for her to reveal herself. He focused his eyes on the shadow of a female body approaching. Her movements a perfect combination of human and avian until she reached the end of the table.
Panic set in. A simple redirection of his eye would reveal to him what she looked like in human form but the muscles in his neck locked up. His mind attempted to figure out how this was possible. Whatever magic that had created this couldn’t be good in any way. It wasn’t until her soft familiar voice called out his name that he was able to face what she had become.
“Marvin…”
Her voice trembled with anticipation, almost to the point of being nervous, and he tilted his head and way amazed at what she had become.
A beautiful, statuesque woman, completely devoid of any bird like biology, fully naked with feathered onyx hair. Her skin was slightly lighter in color with indentions to where her feather used to be. He swallowed hard at the beauty before him, not sure what to say or how to react, but his eyes radiated with a sense of amazement that she returned with a smile.
“You like?” she asked.
He nodded in approval, lost for words. Her smile grew brighter as she moved closer to him. An intoxicating scent washed over him as his nerves spiked. His eyes drifted from her to his own naked body as his erection that was once dormant with fear sprang to life.
Vina glanced. The smile on her face grew curious as spasms of nervousness focused his cock to flench. She leans forward, gave him a tender kiss on the lips before climbing her silken body on top of his restrained body.
“Now, we mate,” she said gently.
Before he could process what was happening Vina gripped his cock and lowered herself on top of him. The sensation was sublime as if they were created for each other until her animal nature took over. She pounded herself upon him. Her body brewing a glossy sweat as her eyes focused on his. He recognized the familiar look, that one of devotion she’d given him so many times as he helped her to heal, which allowed him to stop questioning what was happening and accept his fate, as the howls of pleasure echoed off the wall surrounding them.
It’s always been one of my favorite things to do. Ever since I was a teenager, there’s something about moonlight that brings out a sense of freedom with my creativity.
Those late nights with a notebook in hand sitting on the floor as the silvery light cascaded through the skylight. The sounds of the urban wildlife outside would spring to life in the darkness as my felt-tipped pen scraped across the recycled paper of my sketchbook that doubled as a writing journal. The distant croak of a bullfrog sending out its last mating call in the final weeks of October in a desperate need to reproduce before winter would send my fingers flying until fatigue took over and I’d drift off to sleep with my pen still in my hand.
My current self-imposed writing hiatus, which extended longer than I expected, springs to life with moonlight.
Finding a 30-minute window between sunset and sunrise on the roof patio of my apartment building to write when other people aren’t around is challenging. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been up there, taking deep breaths to relax my mind, as my eyes adjust to the dimness of the light when the strong stench of cannabis cuts through my peaceful preparation. It’s usually followed by one end of a phone conversation consumed with social media malfeasance that goes on long enough for me to abandon my creative plans and briskly walk past the offender with a smile before they have a chance to ask me my opinion on their personal matters.
It’s a public space for the entire building. Allowing myself to think of this space as ‘mine’ would be a fallacy. It’s never their intention to interrupt my sense of calm. In fact, they aren’t thinking of me at all, which is their right, as we both have the same intention… to find a place to express our thoughts freely.
Louis Brandeis stated ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’. Even if his focus was on organizational transparency in dealing with exposing corruption it applies to so many other areas of life. The same can be said of Carl Jung’s ‘knowing your own darkness is the best method of dealing with the darkness of other people’. I’ve always expressed this as darkness being the great equalizer.
In that case, for me, moonlight works as the great revealer or concealer, depending on where you stand.
I can’t think about my experiences with eroticism and kink without moonlight being a major factor. Those incredible visuals created by a slither of silken illumination that cuts through the pitch allowing your eyes to capture something meant to be hidden or exposed.
My mind floats back to those New York City summer blackouts when my girlfriend and I would retreat to the balcony of her dorm room to escape the heat only to eventually venture into an illicit display of mutual masturbation if the neighboring balconies were occupied.
It’s the same balcony when the frustration of being trapped in the city due to a blizzard exposed some emotional tremors that we eventually drowned out through profound fucking 16 stories above a frozen Manhattan.
That same balcony is where a few glasses of wine, combined with a three-course meal I cooked led us to our first of many threesomes. Trails of Cabernet Sauvignon-infused saliva dripping down breasts as erect nipples divert the cascading flow of liquid flowing from lips caught in the illumination from a crescent moon. The shadows of sticky wetness reflected on brown flesh as fingers that were once lodged deep inside opposing bodies are raised to enter my mouth only to be consummated with a three-way kiss before retreating to her bedroom.
This is one of the many memories that moonlight ignites in me. There are others, so many others that spark me whenever I’m alone bathed in moonlight.
Like the time I made a four-hour drive to spend time with my best friend who was having one of her many works produced. She’d flown to California from the East Coast and it had been years since we’d seen each other in person. All of the rooms in town were booked due to an international artist conference and she allowed me to share her room in a very opulent bed and breakfast on the outskirts of town for the weekend.
As luck would have it, her room was right next to a well-known visual artist and his muscular, much younger lover. They spent the night having extremely rough sex that pierced through those study walls sparking us to test the limits of how platonic our relationship could last.
When the moon is just right, I can still smell the essence from her fingers as she quietly masturbated in the bed next to me only to have me lick them clean when she was done in a test to see if I had the will power not to go any further.
The vision of us laying next to each other, the down comforter pulled away from our sweaty bodies with only the moonlight shining upon us. The look in her eyes as my full erection burst through the opening in my boxers, precum glazing the head of my cock from just her energy. Her sweet yet stern suggestion that if I really needed to ‘release my tension’ she’d understand and locked her eyes on my every stroke until I couldn’t take it anymore. The sly smirk of approval on her face and vision of her tan body covered only by a sheer black negligee made from the finest silk is still etched in my soul to this day.
There was my last night in San Francisco after I’d taken one of last tours of The Armory before it closed for good. A couple I met invited me to a sex party. This time I was more of a voyeur than anything else. It was held on a rooftop patio and the energy was electric. All manners of coupling swirled around me but the true excitement lingered on the edges of the patio where people who wanted more privacy could have it with only the moonlight as a guide.
The silhouette of a woman wearing a strap-on reflected against a white wall as she pulled a masculine face from the shadows. She delivered gentle slaps of the silicone head to his chin while asking how much he wanted it. I know he couldn’t see me but somehow our eyes met seconds before he opened his mouth as wide as possible to receive her.
A wisp of grey hair stole my focus, followed by a tight grip of my hand as I’m led to a couch on the far edges of the darkness. My eyes adjust to realize it’s the the wife from the couple that had invited me. She just wanted to check in on me. We have the most normal of conversations as dimly lit flesh melds around us in open expressions of lust until the sight of he husband being strapped onto an elaborate Saint Andrew’s Cross brought us both back towards the lighted area of the patio.
It’s much more than just the visuals that the moonlight sparks in me. It also grants me the emotional freedom to explore certain aspects of myself that I would have some trepidation revealing in the brightness of other forms of illumination. It reduces the shame one might hold as prying eyes judge your actions, or at least give you the sensation of being judged by others.
Shared sensual experiences encapsulated by timid illumination. Swallowing fear as you venture into something new. The slight turn of your head might obscure the expressions of joy, delight, and sometimes even horror or disgust. At times it can allow you to hide in plain sight as your mind weighs the pros and cons of unfamiliar exploration.
I’ve been lucky the delights far outweigh the horror. That fighting through deep-set trauma to achieve a semblance of ownership over the things that plague you seem not to be such a rigorous task when a slight repositioning of your body can cloak you in darkness and allow you to embrace those feeling no matter how difficult they might be.
This is the arena from which I write. Allowing myself to get back to the main focus of what I want to do with the amount of honesty my writing deserves. Giving the characters I create the emotional balance that stems from my own experiences to flow through my fingers onto the page and make the readjustments I need to feel safe… or not.
As I now look out into the City of Angles, wondering what stories are being created all around me. My ears stay alert for the slightest sounds for inspiration.
Those late-night moans of ecstasy, whether self-induced or through the means of a willing partner from the apartments below me hold my interest. These private moments belong to the world once the sound leaves your dwelling. The thought that nobody’s listening to these intense moments of pleasure at this hour mixes with the vocal screams of passion for those who don’t care electrifying the night.
The crunch of Velcro restraints being clasped upon the wrists of a couple trying light bondage for the first time. Breaths of anticipation sneak through windows as commanding words of pleasure force an unexpected groan to escape lips.
The slaps of naked flesh as bodies pound against each other to promote furious orgasms through wet friction.
The squelch of the last bit of lube being forced out of its container echoes in the empty moments of this urban abyss when helicopters and police sirens aren’t filling the night air.
I live for these moments, as fleeting as they might be, and know that in the darkness of night, with a slither of moonlight as my guide, I can always find inspiration for the deeper truths of my experiences as I make my slow return to writing those sensual episodes of lust and emotional struggles to achieve exhilarating bliss on the page again.
Tomorrow, Feb 8th, The Big Book of Orgasms, Volume 2: 69 Sexy Stories will be available in both ebook and print, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to have one of my stories in this collection.
It’s an amazing collection.
I received my author’s copy a few days ago and I’ve been going thorough it. I can honestly tell you, each and every story takes you to a unique place of wonder and excitement. As Valentines Day approaches, this would be a fun read to share with a lover, partner, and even for yourself.
Visit the link below to find out more information on the book and its release.
https://bigbookoforgasm.wordpress.com/about/
I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here but in the upcoming weeks, I’ll share with you the journey I’ve been on during the past year and what it took to get me back on track.
As always thanks and love.
Kendel Davi
As we all say goodbye to 2020 and step into the new year with hope, the steps that we all need to make will be harder than expected.
I understand the concept of positivity and moving forward with optimism but this past year shook me to the core on so many levels.
So much loss.
So much pain.
So much devastation.
So much of everything that at times was overwhelming. When the best thing you can say is you survived 2020 you’ll also remember those who didn’t make it.
I lost mentors, friends, family members, icons that I looked up to that I was lucky enough to meet in person. Through all of the emotional and physical destruction, I still found ways to create some joy. That didn’t completely balance out the negatives of the past year but it gave me a platform to build on.
Writing wise, I probably had the best year that I’ve had when it comes to getting stories published. My favorite coffee shop closed down before Los Angeles went into COVID-19 Safer at Home restrictions. Then, shortly after that, all of the places I ventured to write in had closed their outdoor seating. I was working towards getting myself into a better living situation where I could have the privacy to write but the job I had ended, which forced me to spend way too much time and energy on the other part-time job I had to make ends meet which leaves my eyes drained so when I finally finish working my eyes are too tired to do anything but sleep, when I had the time and space to do so.
All of this seems like quibbling in comparison to what others have gone through. I’m not saying what I went through was as difficult or as painful as others. I just know that I have to acknowledge that my situation has value even if it’s only valuable to me.
This is one of the many lessons I had to extract from my experiences. I normally suck things up and allow myself to be there for my friends without focusing on my own struggles. I’ve been able to do that and find ways to pull myself out of the emotional tragedies of others but this time there was no escape.
One phone call about the loss of a loved one was followed up by a video call from another friend who was in the process of losing someone. I listened, I comforted, I mailed trinkets of normalcy to help break up the pain and sparks a moment of joy in the lives of others and I did that from an honest place of giving and then… it got too much.
I would dread the sound of my phone ringing. I’d only go online to do research or write late at night or in the early morning to minimize the chance I would have to jump into the role of consoler. I needed to find time to deal with my own pain in order for me to make it through the next day. Even thought I survived on little to no sleep for days on end when I was in college, as an adult, it’s not something I can handle anymore.
Yet, I was always there and it wasn’t until a week before Halloween hit that the full effects of what I was going through hit me hard, left me weak, and stole a part of my soul that I had protected for so long that allows me to be somewhat functional to myself.
I shut down.
I lived life going though the motions. I spent more time in my car out of the range of WiFi just staring at the sky dreading the need to engage in humanity. My mind would go blank as I allowed the sound of nature to flood over me and sometimes, if I truly allowed myself to let go, I would jus bawl until I had no tears left. I’d eject all the pain that had been poured into me by others to flow from my body for a hard, concentrated, 15 minute crying session, and then spend the next 5 minutes allowing my own pain to drain from my being just so I could deal with the world.
Normally, I could feel when things got to this point and find a way to deal with my feeling before it reached a critical point but this past year, every day felt like it was critical. Even the moments of joy I was able to carve out for myself were instantly followed by this strange feeling that I had nothing to be happy about.
For most of my life, I’ve been the one that people come to when they’re in need. Because of that, when I need to reach out to others, a lot of the time they don’t have the capacity to do so. I understand that being able to listen without judgement or switching someone’s struggles into a way to release your own emotions is a skill. I’m not sure if it’s because I was reared as a middle child or the fact that I’ve spent a great deal of my life mentoring others, but it’s something I’m used to. I’ve always found the strength to push past those moments because I had the mental space in which I could process, let go, and focus on myself when needed.
That all went away.
My circle of friends became smaller. I found myself lost in catatonic emotional states as I stared into the Pacific Ocean praying I wouldn’t encounter a bored police officer who had nothing to do but disturb the time I allowed myself to have just not feel anything for a moment. For the most part I was lucky. For some reason when I need to have that space the universe allowed it to happen with only a few occasions of people rudely interrupting me from my awakened slumber to find out how long I was going to be in their favorite parking space so they could do the same thing I was doing, I guess.
However it was in these moments that I started to challenge myself with my writing. Rather than allowing the numbness that I so desperately needed to consume me, I turned that into action with simple writing exercises. I’d create my own writing prompts and see how long it would take me to complete them and with my erotica writing mind they were always fun to explore.
It started off simple like seeing how long you could have two characters tease each other before you reached a point where they had to have sex. Where would be the most illogical place for people to have a rendezvous? I would push myself to focus on using the senses in ways I’ve never done before. How could I make something as simple as smelling a mango into a lurid tale that made it difficult for me to keep writing and not stop to enjoy myself?
It was me and my iPad, sitting in some abandoned parking lot in Los Angeles, typing away furiously until a security guard drove by to ask me to move or one of the people who was living in their car would walk over to my car to strike up a conversation. I was always polite when these interruptions happened, no matter where I was at in the writing, because I knew I could find another place a few miles down the street to continue where I had left off.
There were times when I would just sit in my car in the parking garage of my apartment building and write for hours. Pushing myself to go as far as I could not worrying about who would read any of this. All of this was just for me. It was about being more selective with my words and breaking away from some of the clunky writing issues I’ve had in the past. There is nothing like having a computer voice read back your work to hear how terrible your sentence structure can be at times.
Yes, it was like designing my own writing class where as student and teacher I could push myself to be as honest as I could be with how I felt about my writing. Soon I started seeing the benefits of writing everyday. I went back to the practice of not editing until I’d finished the rough draft of a story. Even when things didn’t come out as planned or if a story went in a direction that I never expected it to, I had created work that I could build from or destroy that made the idea of just playing with words a joyful experience. Then, in the middle of this personal growth an odd thing happened.
I started questioning the kind of erotica I wanted to write. Everything I had created was pushing me towards something I couldn’t put my finger on until I had a collection of work that screamed at me to go beyond what was on these pages. It challenged me to be more honest with what I was writing and in that space I felt something that I haven’t felt for a long time when it comes to me and writing erotica… FEAR!
It’s not the fear of my erotic mind. It was the fear of how dishonest I have been with work I’d been doing.
Okay, dishonest isn’t as perfect of a word as SAFE would be.
That’s not to say that some of the subject matter and characters I’ve created have been tame but when you are writing from a place of freedom you find yourself questioning how free are you willing to let yourself be?
Where’s the danger when it came to subject matter, characters, and your own kinks, desires, and proclivities?
It wasn’t there and I needed to find a way to push myself to get there.
Getting closer to my own truth wasn’t my intention when I started doing this but it soon became my purpose as I continued to write. Whatever kink that popped into my head, any erotic thought that crept into my mind was game. Things I’d experienced in my past that might have been questionable I could explore. If I was willing to rip apart my perception of these memories and deal with the truth of what happened now that I have some distance from it, what I could learn from it?
Yes, it was exciting in theory. When I started writing again the words flowed from my fingers at such a rapid place that it felt like I was doing the right thing.
Then… I shut down.
It was too much to ask of myself to do a deep dive into the uneasy elements of my psyche and the questionable moments of my past. Especially when I was constantly surrounded by the trauma of others, making an attempt to dive into my own past traumas while dealing with the new ones that were created this year was too much.
I don’t regret the attempt, I mean YOLO.
I learned to adjust and created some stories and characters that publishers seemed to enjoy. Those stories have opened up a new world of exploration that had brought me closer to the honesty I truly want to have in my writing. It’s the type of step that helped move me closer to making this hobby into a profession and I don’t regret that one bit.
It will take some time for me to to get to where I feel I need to be but the one thing this years has taught me is patience.
I’m willing to take the time to allow these wounds to heal in order for me to get to a better place with my mental strength and my writing. There’s a clarity in knowing where you feel you want to be that gives you purpose. It’s a purpose that was foggy at best but now it’s about taking the steps to allow the healing to begin as I continue to move forward.
The past year, to say the least, was hell!
Well, that is probably the kindest word I use to express the journey of 2018.
Deaths in the family, break ups, and an all consuming depression that kept me away from doing the things I need to do. The job that I love doing is constantly in flux and the pay is even more fluctuating which has left me in a state of living in the constant hustle.
Looking for the next gig while you’re trying to complete the job you currently have drains you. It takes everything out of you until you feel like you have nothing left. Sleep becomes evasive. Moments of joy are instantly followed by a sense of dread.
When is the negative shoe gonna drop? I know it’s coming. I’m looking for it, waiting for it, knowing it’s just around the corner. It never comes when you feel you have the strength to deal with it. In fact, it always comes at the most inopportune times, and still you have to keep pushing forward, right? I mean, people constantly tell you that life is worth living. Don’t give up. You never know what’s around the corner all you have to do is fight through it.
Attempting to stay positive through all of this has been almost as draining as dealing with the problems right in front of my face. I’ve allowed myself to let things grow to a critical point and when it comes time to deal with all of these issues because you can’t wait any longer you end up feeling numb.
That’s how most of 2018 left me. A numb feeling of worthlessness that swallowed me whole and I didn’t know how to get out of it. I stayed in that darkness, avoiding any light that came into my life because it allowed me to clearly see the things I haven’t been doing.
You see, that’s all I allowed myself to see. In the midst of all of this craziness, I continued to write. I wrote furiously, all the time, anyplace I could. My phone, my laptop, notecards, notebooks… all of it scattered but it’s all there somewhere so when I choose to put all of this together I might find some joy in this dark journey.
I’ve been in this place before. It’s never been this dark but I’ve been here. It seems every 8 to 10 years I hit this void and question everything I’ve done and what I’m doing. I loose focus on the overall gaol and allow the details to consume everything. I can’t see beyond that and then, at the end of the year, you start to see how this forced sabbatical in the realm of darkness allowed me to create some of the best work I’ve done in years.
I’ve had three short stories and possibly a fourth accepted into anthologies this year. One that came out in earlier last year, one more coming out next month, and another coming out in April. These are all stories that saved me from those dark moments of the past year and with every contract I signed I started to see the light just a little bit more.
You can never see it when you’re trapped in it. Finding moments of joy during that time felt so painful but the one thing, going through the past year showed me is that sometimes you just have to create without focusing on and end goal.
All I could do was write. It’s the one thing I knew I had control over. I could write as little or as much as I needed to. The key was to just WRITE! I didn’t want to keep this discomfort in my body. I didn’t want to carry it around with me all day long and even if I had to sit in my car in the wee hours of the morning because, with me, depression and insomnia are joined at the hip.
I submitted to every submission that I could find. I would map out when the deadlines were and did my best to have those stories clean and ready to go at least two weeks before they were due. If I wasn’t solid on an idea that the deadline was coming up in a week, I’d skip it and move to the next one. My focus was to be as clear as possible with what I was writing. I worked on submission that were out of my comfort zone. Hell I started looking for submissions that I knew were so far away from how my mind work all with the intention of seeing a rejection letter in my inbox to prove that I didn’t know what I was doing.
That happened a lot but the flip side was almost every anthology I wanted my work to get into got accepted. I only picked five but of those there was only one where the work didn’t fit into what they were looking for.
In a round about way, this experience was just another version of diligent practice. I can even call it desperate diligent practice and I almost forgot how valuable how working on your craft with a different intent can be beneficial to your overall craft.
When I was a musician, I practiced all the time and when I got bored with scale, etudes, and sight reading, I find a genre of music that I couldn’t stand and do my best to master it. I would do my best to find something about it that I ‘liked’ and see if I could import that into the things that I loved. What that did was give me the ability to open up my skills. I can’t tell you how many times I was playing bass with a jazz combo and doing an improvised some modulated country riff would flow from my fingers that fit right in with the song I was playing.
It was never an intentional thing, I had just added something to my wheelhouse and allowed it to flow out of me when it needed to.
That’s exactly how it is with the writing journey. Even though it’s not happening in real time, in front of an audience, it still has value and I’m starting to slowly allow myself to embrace that.
It’s been over a year since I really posted anything on this blog. I’ve been writing my ass of I just haven’t been willing to shared this journey with any one because pealing off the layers of what I’ve been going through to a place where I’m raw seems like a solitary thing. It was something I needed to get through before I placed myself and what I’m going through to the world.
It’s still a little difficult to do but I’m going to try to let a little more of me out as I feel that I need to.
This isn’t a rebrand as much as it’s a real-brand, and feeling what I need to do in order to create the work I wanted to do when I started this all those years ago give me hope.
If this blog were to die in the woods, would anyone notice?
That’s what has been stuck in my head over the past year. I mean, when I started this it had a purpose but recently it’s seemed more like a burden than anything else.
A lot of issues have forced these thoughts into my head. The past few year have been filled with personal tragedies, emotional upheavals, and stupid mistakes that I made that I thought at the time would make me feel better about being on this earth.
Yes, I lost friends and mentors due to illness. I lost jobs which forced my living situation to turn into a hell landscape. Being forced to move to a place where you have little to no privacy makes writing anything out of the ‘norm’ difficult beyond belief. I accidentally violated the trust of a good friend who had always been there for me in touch times due to a misunderstanding and I felt that I had to pull away.
When I first started out I was excited about writing erotica and the power it had to effect people. My work was getting noticed and my ego started to get in the way. Then that all came crashing down as this world of comfort that I had created for myself started to turn into black hole of dread. I’d write post and leave them on my computer. I’ve written several novellas that I didn’t even care to move past the second draft. I’ve outlined four novels from top to bottom, working out the emotional ins and outs of each chapter to the point where the outline itself could easily become the novel itself and yet the all sit digitally archived for me to do nothing with for over a year.
Why?
Is it because I lost faith in myself? Is it because the people outside of my Kendel Davi identity haven’t given me the same artistic support as I give them? Is it because the rejections started coming in and after years of spending a life writing other formats where I had my skin toughened to rejection, the ones I got from writing erotica effected me in a more harsh way?
Well, it’s all of that and none of it at the same time.
What I didn’t expect was that in opening myself up in this genre would force me to deal with what I was missing in my own life. The more I researched a topic and designed characters that would explore their kinks, the more mine started to bubble under my skin. I found myself caught between the reality of what I was discovering about myself and the dissatisfaction I was having with creating characters to explore this on paper.
That’s when the fear set in.
I knew the person I was when I started this blog wouldn’t stay the same but the last year has forced me to realize that the person I am now, at this moment is developing in ways he didn’t expect. My needs have changed and my willingness to share that in whatever form that needs to take had me paralyzed to share anything at all.
I never stopped writing but exposing that rawness on a blog seemed too much for me to take. I kept everything inside and soon all the pressure with no release came crashing down on me.
I’m not fully out of the woods with all of this but I’m starting to embrace why it happened and what I need to do in order to continue to grow.
There are several stages that come with personal growth on any level and if I could compare what I’m going through to any animal I’d have to say that this past year I’ve been a butterfly in the cocoon stage. That stage where the chemical changes are violent and painful but all wrapped up in a soft silk envelope that protects you from the outside elements while giving you enough room to grown. I’m not ready to take flight just yet but I can see the sunlight piercing through my protective covering.
So, back to the original question. If this blog were to die in the woods, would anyone notice?
I would and I think that’s the most important answer to this question.
Like all things, I need to change and this blog will change over the next few months but knowing that I still need this in order to become a better person it probably the most important lesson I’ve learned through the past year of emotional upheaval and tragedy.
As this year comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on the journey I’ve been on in the past 12 months. I’ve had the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. It’s been filled with deaths in the family and artistic successes that I didn’t expect. As I get older it seems that the balance makes each year flow becomes a harsh blend of ups and downs.
I’ve continued to write erotica but I haven’t posted too many times this year. It’ ‘s been a fight just to find a few moments to get away and write something that drives me. I’ve got a lot of work that in some sort of development from novellas, novels, short stories, and even random thoughts that I know I can develop into much larger projects.
However, I wanted to end this year with something to grow on a motivate me forward and I’m lucky and blessed to have my short story, Beautiful, as part of The Big Book of Submission, Volume 2 edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel.
The US release date for the print book is January 9th, through Amazon and the ebook is already available for you to read. I’ve gone through most of it and I can tell you that the stories are incredible. I’m extremely proud to have a story in the anthology along with some of my favorite authors.
For those of you that have stayed with my all this time, I just wanted to say thank you, and I wish you all the happiness and success you’ve ever wanted in 2018.
Here are the links to the The Big Book of Submission, Volume 2.
Other buy links:
For me, this was one of the best ways to end this year.
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