{"id":1342,"date":"2011-03-05T08:22:37","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T16:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/?p=1342"},"modified":"2013-05-23T07:19:21","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T14:19:21","slug":"fairy-tale-week-guest-sunny-moraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/fairy-tale-week-guest-sunny-moraine\/","title":{"rendered":"[GLBT Fairy Tale Week] Sunny Moraine Rides the Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The first guest blogger during Fairy Tale Week is Sunny Moraine. \u00a0Her f\/f story “The Art of Storm Riding” takes place in the desert, a very unlikely setting for a fairy tale, which is why it immediately appealed to me. The story \u00a0appears in\u00a0Rumpled Silk Sheets<\/em>.<\/a> Here’s how she was inspired to write.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The Art of Storm-Riding” – Badra, the daughter of a sheik, has spent years caught in the midst of a struggle between the role proscribed for her and the secret desires of her heart. But a magical sandstorm, an ancient curse, and a beautiful stranger could finally set her free forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I sat down to write a story for\u00a0Rumpled Silk Sheets<\/em>, I already had a general idea of what I wanted to do. There was a specific story that had been nagging at me for almost two years, a story that I had made one attempt already to retell (as M\/F rather than F\/F). It had been one of my very favorite fairy tales as a child–I knew it as \u201cThe White Cat\u201d, though like many fairy tales it\u2019s been known in other languages and cultures by other names.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say for sure what made it stick around for so long, taking up as much psychic space as it did. I think part of it is the gender dynamic that already exists in the original tale: unlike many fairy tales, it makes the real driving force of the narrative, the source of actual and figurative power, a woman–who is resourceful, brave, and a bit ruthless into the bargain. And she isn\u2019t even evil, which is also worth remarking on. The hero of the story is in trouble and the enchanted princess helps him, again and again. She even arguably engineers the circumstances of her own rescue, rather than depending on the hero to get around to it eventually. Her courage in doing so is considerable: in the version I grew up with, the enchantment can only be broken if the hero beheads her, and at the crucial moment he wants to refuse such a horrifying act, while the princess is brave and insistent. Although the story ends with a traditional marriage and the hero becoming the heir to his father\u2019s throne, I always got the sense that the princess–soon to be the queen–would be the real mind and will of the whole operation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gender dynamics are often what get me interested in writing erotica.<\/a> <\/span>In the initial M\/F retelling that I did, I kept the dynamics essentially the same: the princess–a shape-shifter–gives shelter to a lost prince and reclaims her kingdom and her human form through sex–sex that she both instigates and controls. I was never entirely satisfied with this version, however, and when I decided to jump on board the Rumpled Silk Sheets train, it occurred to me that a F\/F retelling might provide the more interesting feminist power dynamic that I was trying to capture.<\/span><\/p>\n

A further F\/F draft set the whole thing in the familiar semi-Medieval European context, and this, too, I found less than satisfying. It still seemed too conventional. Then I got to thinking about cats and curses and goddesses and power, and Egypt suggested itself almost automatically. An image quickly followed: a woman clothed in black, riding a horse headlong into a sandstorm. From there emerged the character of Badra, daughter of the Sheikh and wild rider of the desert night, and the rest was easy.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been fascinated with the Middle East since taking Arabic in college, though I\u2019ve never been there, and I tried to do as much research as I reasonably could. Since the setting of a fairy tale gives one a certain degree of leeway, most of the work was in finding the proper terms for things–something that I may yet have gotten wrong, and I cry pardon if this is so.<\/span><\/p>\n

The title of the story itself comes from a poem of the same name by the Egyptian-Lebanese poet Yahia Lababidi–I loved the poem when I found it, and I think the dreamlike quality of the verses matches the same slightly eerie, dreamlike quality of my narrative. <\/span><\/p>\n


\nI could not decipher the living riddle of my body
\nput it to sleep when it hungered, and overfed it
\nwhen time came to dream<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>I nearly choked on the forked tongue of my spirit
\nbetween the real and the ideal, rejecting the one
\nand rejected by the other<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

I still have not mastered that art of storm-riding
\nwithout ears to apprehend howling winds
\nor eyes for rolling waves<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Interestingly, after I posted the poem on my own blog, Lababidi found me and left me a comment. He was immensely kind and gracious, and I only hope that it didn\u2019t weird him out too much to see what his own work helped to inspire in me. It\u2019s strange, how when we put something creative out into the world we can never be entirely sure of where it will end up or what it will ultimately do. Our stories and songs and images are like children: we do as well as we can in making them, we let them go, we hope for the best. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an excerpt of my story. I hope you enjoy it, and the entire collection.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>At first there was only silence between them, a silence that swelled like the firelight, and filled blank spaces rather than outlined them. Badra was still clothed, cloaked in her hijab, though unveiled, and the woman beside her stretched out on the polished stone of the floor and ran her hands over first her own coffee-colored skin and then the over the soft fabric of Badra\u2019s clothing, looking up with golden eyes, unblinking as a cat\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

And though they exchanged no words, Badra felt that they were talking after all, that she told this strange creature about her father, the sheikh, about the bayt and the endless days of travel, the sand rolling out in front of them as though they were making it real by their very footsteps, the heat, the cool of the night and the stars spreading overhead with a brightness and a clarity that could be terrifying in how small it made her feel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Badra poured out her secrets, her hatred of the life of a woman, days and hours of a woman, marriage, children, modesty and demureness and never to run too fast, never to laugh too loud or ride too long, a cage around her heart that she was forever breaking free from, even as each bar was reset the instant it was broken.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seemed to Badra that the woman spoke with her hands, listened with her hands, and Badra spoke through her skin, though she heard her own words in her ears. There were gentle touches, the soft warmth of closeness, the whisper of cloth against skin. And when the woman tugged at her hijab with gentle impatience, Badra did not resist.<\/span><\/p>\n

More, the woman whispered. The darkness still envelops us; we still ride in the heart of the storm… Bastet bestows favor through you. Therefore give me more of yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Badra’s robe slipped from her shoulders. She shrugged and hurried it along, sighing when at last it came free and the warm air touched her breasts at the same instant that the woman did, playing with their weight, kneading them gently in hands soft as silk. Badra arched her back and sighed again. Men had wanted to touch her in this way, she knew. But she had looked ahead to that, to the life of a sheltered bride, a delicate flower, to be touched only at the appointed time and only in the most particular ways, and to take her proper place in a house of women. She had looked ahead to that\u2026 and what she had seen then had not looked half as real as what lay before her now, all curves and sweetness, arching up to touch her in a whole host of delightful ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

More, the woman urged again, her skin sliding against Badra\u2019s, shiver meeting shiver. You feel caged, ukhti? Uncage yourself. Fly away, little bird, into my arms.<\/span><\/p>\n

Badra rolled, shifting her hips, the cloth sliding further down. She arched against the heat and the light, the soft weight of another\u2019s body over her. At last the woman kissed her: light, friendly kisses that fell around her cheeks and mouth like a morning shower and then deepened, roughened, a rough cat-tongue pushing between her lips, past her teeth and tangling with her own, the taste of honey, and a faint tang of blood, as though from the lips of one who had recently eaten fresh meat.<\/span><\/p>\n

And now the heat throbbed in her veins.<\/span><\/p>\n

————–<\/p>\n

Rumpled Silk Sheets<\/em><\/strong> is available \u00a0from\u00a0Ravenous Romance<\/a>,\u00a0Fictionwise<\/a>,\u00a0ARe<\/a>, and\u00a0Kindle<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first guest blogger during Fairy Tale Week is Sunny Moraine. \u00a0Her f\/f story “The Art of Storm Riding” takes place in the desert, a very unlikely setting for a fairy tale, which is why it immediately appealed to me. The story \u00a0appears in\u00a0Rumpled Silk Sheets. Here’s how she was inspired to write. “The Art […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,63],"tags":[206,42,918,75,490,74,207],"class_list":["post-1342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-event","category-guest-posting","tag-fairy-tale-week","tag-glbt-fairy-tales","tag-guest-posting","tag-lesbian-fairy-tales","tag-romance","tag-rumpledsilksheets","tag-sunny-moraine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pzLgx-lE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}