New Story: The Adjusters #63

(Ah! You thought I was dead, didn't you? You should be so lucky. No, I was fighting my “block”, and hanging around the blog just made me feel guilty and blocked me further. But I'm feeling better now. Here's hoping I haven't lost _all_ of my readers. I'll get to your comments and emails in the coming week.)

Here is December's installment of The Adjusters, “Los Angeles, Part 2", wherein Daniel Malcolm meets up with a friend.

As usual, comments welcome.

I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for general discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)


The Adjusters #63 - Los Angeles, Part 2

Daniel Malcolm felt strangely conspicuous in the back of the breakfast diner that touted that they served the best breakfast in the city, day or night. Partly it was because he was dressed more formally than the crowd that had been in the diner—more like a breakfast pub, to be exact—and that had steadily accumulated since he arrived. The place was packed.

But it was a silly reaction, because no one paid any attention to him. They were all students, all from the nearby UCLA, and he was not much older than them. They were loud, eating and talking about all of those things that college students talked about when they needed to wind down and the last thing they wanted to think about was anything serious. It was a Friday night atmosphere, but mid-morning. You could smell it in the air, the ethos of the average college student. Go out, have fun, get laid.

Daniel knew he was being unfair, but he also envied their seemingly insouciant approach to life—one he had himself held until fairly recently. A world where the biggest problem one could have was figuring out whether to follow their girlfriend to Texas or not. And even the answer to that one had been easy. Now, everything had weight. Everything was important. Everything mattered. Having fun seemed almost like a foreign concept.

Continue reading...

Next month: Los Angeles, Part 3.

Update #2

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I mean, I have one stupid scene to write. One stupid scene. Maybe, what? 2000 words? Something that even at a slow pace I'd knock off in four days. (A slow writing day is about 500 net words.) Yet, I'm stuck. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear I'm having writer's block. Which is silly. This ain't no War and Peace. It's smut!

The Adjusters #63 is coming, believe you me. And then I'll have my full head to get to your comments over the last few weeks.

In the meantime, I ran across an oldie on Leviticus' website. Dark Pen's Office Games. No description, basically the story of Brad, a programmer who writes BDSM smut in his spare time, and what happens when he discovers that one of his hot young co-workers masturbates to his stories without knowing that he was the one writing them. Hijinks ensue.

Update and Games

It'll be a few more days before The Adjusters #63 comes out. Struggling with the end of the installment a little bit there. I hate when that happens. And to think that Book VI was supposed to be the easy one....

In the meantime, here are a few things that have come through in the comments that you may be interested in.

First off, and I realize this is old news but still, friend-of-the-blog Georg Kinaski, of SelectaCorp fame, has a few new games out in the world that you simply have to check out. His Corporate Raider series is fantastic. Corporate Raider 3 has some incredible build up. I can't say too many good things about it. You can find links on his Tumblr page, and he has a Patreon as well.

Also filed under interactive games, I was pointed towards a couple of mind-control centered games being written by Fugue. The easiest to get is Heavy Petting, in very early release. It's a blast, even though the interface is a bit cranky. Fugue has a Patreon as well, because hey, who doesn't these days? :)

Story-wise, have a read through Pan's My Car, My Rules: “A man plays a subliminal tape for his carpooler.” I'm usually not a huge fan of Pan's stories—they're technically flawless, but they don't really hit my spots—but this one I like a lot.

Webcomics

Aargh! Spent the weekend utterly and completely distracted by a smut project that may or may not ever see the light of day. It was fun as a prototyping experiment, but now I'm behind on everything. And I mean everything.

By way of procrastination, here are a couple of adult webcomics I've run across in the last few weeks that are of surprisingly high quality and that until now I had never heard about. Happy accidents, running into them.

Now, the really weird thing is that they are fantasy/human-monster based. Which is not something that usually calls to me. But these work for me. Part of it is the story line, part of it just the really good execution.

• Okay, so the first one is less hardcore sex, and much more too cute for comfort: The Monster Under the Bed. Romantic and vaguely childish. (Though the mother, man, wish there was a series just about her!)
• My favorite of the bunch: Alfie. I know, I know, halflings are not renowned to be sexy. But here, they're cute and sexy and horny and perverted, and there's introspection and psychology and an actual storyline and I expect great things.
• Fun and lighthearted and with some twisted fantastic sex: The Cummoner. What happens when you're a beautiful witch and you get your power from sex? Yeah, pretty much what you'd expect...

I think they all have Patreons, too, so if you like one of them, it gives you a change to support it.

Kiss of the Succubus

Ran across an interesting story last week. Dark, infuriating, and sexy as hell in parts, if you like the supernatural. Kiss of the Succubus, by Totzman: “Detectives investigate disappearance of two college students.” (It's in the illustrated section, but the illustrations are few and not distracting, thankfully...)

New Story: The Adjusters #62

(Thanks for your patience, folks. Here we go.)

Here is October's installment of The Adjusters, “Los Angeles, Part 1", wherein Daniel Malcolm and Eve Shawbank start investigating a new Special in Los Angeles.

As usual, comments welcome.

I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for general discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)


The Adjusters #62 - Los Angeles, Part 1

The flight from DC to Los Angeles was three-quarter full, a late flight in the middle of the week. Most fliers were business people returning home, as near as Daniel Malcolm could tell, after spending a day or two on the East Coast, ready for their commute the next morning. At least, for the middle managers that surrounded Shawbank and him in Economy Class.

Shawbank was out. The lights were dimmed in the cabin, illuminated only by the glow of the individual entertainment units attached to the seats. She was not sleeping, though. She sat in her seat, head back, eyes closed, thinking about whatever it was that was bothering her.

For she seemed bothered by something, that much was clear. Daniel had noticed she had been distracted for several weeks now, more taciturn than usual. Brisecoeur had shrugged when Daniel had carefully pointed it out, and the Belgian’s guess was she had been given a special project. Like the one about hunting down Thaddeus Cargyle? Daniel had asked. “No clue,” Brisecoeur had replied.

The lack of conversation, the darkness, the stillness that characterized planes after the lights were out suited Daniel just fine. He still had not digested the video clip Paul had sent him earlier that evening—Jenn, his Jenn, in the throes of whatever Biff had done to her, whatever Cargyle had done to her, a puppet to artificially induced lust—his Jenn, fucked up, but alive, and functioning.

Continue reading...

Next month: Los Angeles, Part 2.

The story I really meant to post

As was pointed out, I posted the same story twice in a row. That's because I got confused. (It happens often enough.) The one I wanted to post has a similar theme, and a similar title. Even a similar author name. Go figure.

Mother's Dilemma, by Master C: “Tracy is blackmailed by her boss, and forced into a world of slavery.” Again, pretty rough.