Our Own Way & My Return To Serial Fiction

 
 

So, I have released the first title in a new series.

Get it here.

First question I imagine you’ll have is: What is this?

In short, it’s a serial harem that takes place on modern day Earth. All of the characters are human and there’s absolutely nothing paranormal, magical, or otherwise fantastical about the world or the people. Something I’ve never done before. The closest I’ve come is A Warm Place, but that’s post-apocalyptic.

The story chronicles an unlikely relationship that begins when Gabe, an aspiring author who is just beginning to take the first steps on his journey to (hopefully) make a living writing, is unexpected visited by Ellen, a former co-worker who he formed a strong, though brief, bond with last year, after she’s cheated on by her fiancée. Both realize that they really don’t have anyone else in their life they can turn to, and a sexual relationship quickly sparks. As they begin figuring out the relationship, as they’re both fairly different people, they ultimately decide they want to go their own way, build a life together, and they attract like-minded individuals.

From the technical side of things, I intend to release these stories pretty much as I write them, which ideally will be at shorter intervals. They’ll be in the KU, 2.99$, and they’ll average around 20-25,000 words. (I think this is somewhere between 50-80 Kindle Pages, but it’s basically impossible to know for sure). Unless there’s significant demand for it, there won’t be collections, but even if there are, there won’t be bonus content. The main reason for this is because I want to move away from the collections and just want to be able to write unconstrained and let a series be as long or as short as it needs to be. If I want, I can end on Book 7 or Book 13 or Book 22 for that matter. This is the first time I’ll truly be able to experience that, so I’m interested to see how it turns out.

Second question: Why?

I was thinking back to Parasexual last month and remembered that my favorite aspect of the series was the emotional connection that the characters had, as well as the trauma and difficulties they had to work through together. As much as I enjoy writing about fighting monsters and crazy survival situations, there is a part of me that wants to write about the more domestic side of things. The calmer things, the more real problems.

One theme that has been present in damn near everything I’ve written, even going back to the first Hellcats, is people wanting to go their own way. People sick of society’s stupid bullshit and unreasonable standards and arbitrary restrictions. People who want to build their own lives, away from all that. Who just want to be happy together. This has manifested in a number of ways, and honestly it’ll probably continue to do so.

It’s a theme that I find very appealing to write about.

A second reason that I’m doing this is a more practical one: it’s helping me keep my sanity. So, don’t get me wrong, I like A Warm Place. I like writing it and I like how much people are liking it. I intend to keep going until it’s done.

But I also want to write other things. And while I am still working on my caveman fantasy series in the background, I want to have a series that has a somewhat more rapid release cycle.

On top of that, this gives me a more unique opportunity. I don’t know if people may remember, but I’ve said more than once that I wish I could expand on some of my shorter works, like The Pale Redhead or Snakeskin.

Well, now, in a way, I can. These stories are quick and easy, not just in the release cycle, but in the actual narratives. Things can be lower stakes in these series, calmer, more fun. Instead of writing about a group of people trying to build a whole settlement, now I can write about a small group of lovers just trying to build a home.

Anyway, A Warm Place 7 is still on track, but now so is Our Own Way, and maybe another serial that has a similar premise, but is set in my fantasy universe and features a harem of monster girls. Remember when I used to write about those? I do, and I miss them and writing about weird monster girl sex.

The Misty Vixen Newsletter (July 2021)

 
 

First things first, A Warm Place 6 is out now!

To those of you who have already finished it, don’t worry, I’m already beginning work on A Warm Place 7. I know it says that the book will be released in August, but I did that give myself a little bit of leeway. At worst it should be early August. If we’re lucky, I can get it done before the end of July! (Fingers crossed.)

This next A Warm Place is going to get grimmer and more intense. I’m hoping people like it as it focuses more on the action and survival aspects of the universe and will note an overall tonal shift in the narrative.

Now, about the second collection, I did fully intend to get it out by now, but a technical difficulty delayed it. It should be out within the next week.

Let’s talk about the future.

In my last update, I said I planned on starting or had started a few projects. June was a…confusing month for me. There’s a lot going on in my life right now in the background and I’m dealing with some other stuff. Ultimately, it’s nothing life-changing or terribly bad. But I did have a few duds.

After working a bit more on the sad/happy Sci-Fi Series, I felt something was off with it and, in a rare move, deleted everything I’d written. It just didn’t feel right. I still like the overall plan I have for the story, but it needs to go back into the darkness for now.

I began working on that new Post-Apocalyptic Series I was talking about, but it ended up getting completely, utterly, totally eclipsed by another project. It’s not gone, just delayed.

My fantasy caveman story. I’ve been mentioning it for years now, and the urge to write something like that has stayed with me the entire time. Near the end of June, I sat down and started planning. I intended to just sketch out some basic ideas but as I got started all this stuff just poured out of me and I planned out an entire universe and 15 novels worth of stories. So………that happened.

In short, I’m working on that story in the background now. I’ll probably be ready to actually discuss it next month.

The last thing I want to say is something I touched on last month. A Warm Place has really changed things for me. Like, it’s selling at a pace that I only dreamed of before. I still can’t say for sure, because life is unpredictable, and an indie writing career is even more unpredictable, but if things continue in this fashion, then it definitely puts off the need to start a new pen name or start up a store on my website for awhile. I mean, I can write enough A Warm Place content for easily the rest of 2021 and probably several months into 2022. And although I’m less sure about this new series, if it does as well as A Warm Place, then it’ll carry me safely into 2024, maybe even 2025 if I can slow the pace of releases even a little bit.

Dear lord, if I could afford to take 6 weeks instead of 4, that would be amazing.

So anyway yeah, that’s what’s up for July. Full steam ahead on A Warm Place 6, A Warm Place Collection 2 soon, and fantasy caveman novel being written in the background. I am so psyched for that one.

A Warm Place 6 Preview

I’m still aiming to get A Warm Place 6 out before the end of the month. Honestly, I’m aiming to have it out before the week is through, but while I have a solid layout for what I need to write, how many words that can end up being tends to be a bit random. So it might bleed into next week.

Anyway, here’s the first chapter of the novel.

And if you’d like to look at the first two chapters, follow this link to my Patreon!

I’ll likely be doing a cover reveal near the end of the week.

“It doesn’t look bad, Chris.”

“What?” I asked, a little startled, dropping my hand back to my side instead of gently probing my wounded face.

“Your face.” Hannah fell silent for a few seconds as we walked among the trees, the freshly fallen snow crunching beneath our boots, wreathing everything in the forest in frigid silence. “I, um, saw you looking at it before we left. In the window’s reflection.”

I glanced briefly at her. She was looking straight ahead, ostensibly because she was trying to find a building among the trees, but she seemed nervous.

More so than usual.

Although I guess I’d say Hannah wasn’t usually nervous, more just…

Alert? Angry? Both? Was there even a word for that?

“How could you tell?” I replied finally, looking off to the right, away from her.

“The way you were looking into the window, and the angle you were holding your head at. It looked more like someone looking in a mirror than out a window,” she replied, her voice carefully neutral for some reason.

“Huh,” I replied. “Well thanks. I think it looks kinda bad.”

I still had a nasty black eye and a bruise on my cheek, as well as a split lip and cut eyebrow, from the fistfight I’d endured with Thomas from a little while back. Certainly they were all healing up, but they were still pretty noticeable.

Still was a little pissed that the bastard had brought a knife to a fist fight.

Not surprised, though.

“The others seem to like it,” Hannah said.

“Did they say that?” I asked, a little surprised.

“No. Lara implied, though. And I can just tell in the way they look at you.”

“What do you think?”

She shrugged noncommittally and I didn’t push it any further.

Hannah had been acting weird recently.

It had been three days since our big fight with the wolf pack up at the ranger’s station. Mostly I’d been laying low, trying to heal up and actually rest for once, but I was so easily rendered restless. The first day I’d made myself get up and go check on Alec and Kayla, bringing Susan and Jessica with me, because they were in such poor shape. Between his bad bite wounds and Kayla’s infection, I wasn’t sure they’d make it.

But when we had gotten up there, he seemed a bit better and Kayla was improving enough from the stronger antibiotics we’d found her that we actually got a chance to meet her. We talked for a little bit, but not too long because the two of them were down for the count and needing their rest. After dropping off a care package of spare food and some extra meds, we’d headed back and I had just shut myself up in the lodge the rest of that day and all of the following day. Yesterday my need to do shit had finally gotten to me.

I’d gone for a walk initially but that had turned into revisiting Lara’s and Susan’s old place, wanting to see if there was anything left behind I could grab. There wasn’t much, a few things, mostly books, but when I got home Lara was waiting for me. She’d talked me and Jessica into going back to that cabin in the woods where I’d first met Jessica, and where Lara and Jessica had gone to have their affair. Lara wanted a proper threesome in that cabin, as we’d never actually had the chance to return after that first meeting I’d had.

And we’d given it to her.

So that had been fun.

Hannah had been acting weird. The first day I’d put it down to shock. Facing down nine wolves in a tight area was terrifying no matter who you were, and she’d never dealt with anything that serious before. Or not often enough to be able to shake it off after. I’d talked to her a bit, but ultimately she’d just gone to see her mom and I figured Jessica could help more than I could. I didn’t see her the day after that, which again I didn’t think much of.

But when I hadn’t seen her at all for most of yesterday, it had started to stand out. I’d gone looking for her after getting back from my threesome with Lara and Jessica, and couldn’t find her for awhile. Apparently she’d gone out walking to the south and had discovered a building. Snow was coming and it was obvious enough that she’d turned back before being able to properly investigate the place.

That’s what we were doing right now.

It had stormed last night but died off sometime before sunrise, leaving today sunny and good for investigating, if a bit cold.

She’d come to tell me about the find when she got back home and I’d tried talking with her a little, but it was obvious she didn’t want to talk to me. I wasn’t sure what was up. With Hannah, it could be anything. Maybe she was pissed about something. Maybe she was mad at me over something I’d done or something she’d thought I’d done.

I had to say, I seemed to have a thing for running into angry, belligerent women.

Though between her, Megan, and Susan, Hannah was definitely the most aggressive.

Also the only one I wasn’t fucking. I had to admit, that was bugging me. Not like I was angry that I wasn’t having sex with her, if she didn’t want to, then she didn’t want to, but more like I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

About what she’d look like naked.

About what she’d look like riding my cock.

About what she’d sound like, panting and gasping and moaning.

She had a nice voice and I always found myself wondering about what women sounded like during sex.

But I could keep a lid on it, keep things purely professional between us. Or I guess closer to friendly. There was a word for it…

Platonic.

I could keep it platonic between us, but not if she was going to cut me out. We’d spoken over breakfast about going out to investigate the building she’d seen. She had seemed conflicted, but then suddenly had agreed to it, and I still didn’t know what that meant. That thing about my face was the first thing she’d said to me after telling me the rough direction the building was in and we’d started walking. We had headed south, away from the lodge, into the woods there. I had to admit, I didn’t really know how to handle this.

Words were not a strength of mine. Same with comforting people. I mean apparently my hugs helped, but I had the impression Hannah wouldn’t want a hug right now. Or, at the very least, not from me. I still wasn’t sure if she was mad at me or not. Although after that last exchange, I now was not sure if she was sure if she was mad at me or not.

“Hey, there it is,” she said, breaking my train of thought.

Probably for the best. I kept getting distracted by her and it would probably be a pretty bad idea to actually pursue anything with her.

I focused on the structure through the trees ahead of us. It was a simple, low, rectangular structure, a building of wood and glass sheathed in ice and a fresh layer of snow that blew away in contrails from the winds that gusted through the forest.

We slowed to a halt about five yards back from the edge of the clearing the structure was built into.

“So, what’s first?” I asked quietly.

“You’re asking me?” Hannah replied.

“Yes. I’m asking you, Hannah.”

That seemed to get her to focus. She was very sharp, but it was obvious that her attention had to be focused for that sharpness to really come into play most of the time. She hadn’t yet had enough practice to cast a wide net of awareness, to be constantly paying attention to everything around her. For whatever reason, she was focused on me, and that had to stop.

“Okay,” she murmured, staring at the building. “First. Check for danger.”

“What kind of danger?”

“People. Wildlife.”

“And?” She struggled silently for a few seconds, then sighed, the frustration plain on her pretty features. “Traps,” I said.

“Oh. Right...what do they look like?”

“Usually they don’t. You just have to be paranoid. In my experience, traps are rare. But at this point ‘better safe than sorry’ is a way of life now. Because if you’re sorry instead of safe, you don’t tend to actually live to be either of them again. So, you look for signs that people have been around. See any footprints in the snow?”

She stared hard at the building, then carefully pulled out her rifle and put the scope to her eye. She studied silently for a few moments.

“No,” she murmured finally.

“But?”

“But...it snowed last night. Someone could’ve come in last night, laid a trap, and the new snow covered everything.”

“Exactly. And you have to be aware of the general wind. On a windy day, the snow can cover the tracks just as effectively as actual snowfall. Keep looking, tell me if you see anything.”

She kept looking. Personally, I didn’t feel any warning signs. But I’d been wrong in the past, and I wanted to see if she came up with anything.

I was sharp, but I had the idea that, given time, practice, and experience, Hannah could end up sharper than me.

“I don’t see anything,” she said finally. “Am I missing something?”

“No, not that I can see.” I expected her to get mad at me, but she said nothing. “I was wondering if you’d see something I missed,” I added finally, vaguely uncomfortable. I almost laughed. I wondered if my time around women like Megan and Susan had reprogrammed me to just expect anger and get uncomfortable when it didn’t happen.

“Okay,” she said. “So we go?”

“Yes. But what’s next?”

“Secure the outside and beware of the inside,” she replied.

“Good. You break left, I’ll break right. We make a complete circle, meet back at the front door,” I said.

“Got it.”

We moved forward and did our little security ritual. I’d known a couple people who’d gotten annoyed with me that I was this level of paranoid. It’s why I tended to travel alone. One of them had actually triggered a trap someone had left behind and broken a leg. It wasn’t fun dealing with that extra bullshit hitch in the plan, but I did. I was out hunting awhile back with a few others as part of the job I’d taken on to stay in some little settlement. We’d found a big warehouse type building out in the middle of nowhere and they wanted to search it.

I honestly should have walked on past that settlement. I almost did, bad vibes coming from it as I found a place to get in for the night. I’d just decided to walk on the next morning after doing some trading when a thick redhead had caught my eye and given me a pretty overtly suggestive look…

I came around to the back of the building and met Hannah there, unable to keep from checking her out just a little as we passed.

Redheads were always a massive weakness of mine.

I didn’t think this place was trapped or occupied. It was a curious building. Didn’t look like it was there for the civilian population, nor commercial reasons either. But it also didn’t look like a ranger’s station or their bunkhouse. It had the air of something official, something government funded, but I guess I lacked imagination in that department because I wasn’t sure what it could be. I guess I’d find out inside.

Looks in through the windows didn’t reveal much as I passed along the other side of the building, heading back up towards the front. A barren kitchen area. A vacant office. A long-abandoned lounge. No people, no signs of people.

We met back by the front doors, which were closed.

“Now what?” Hannah murmured.

“Now we go inside and do the same thing, nice and easy. I’ll go first, you watch my back,” I replied.

She nodded and I tried the knob. It wasn’t locked.

I opened the door, my pistol in hand by now, and peered cautiously inside. A mostly empty lobby waited for us. I stepped inside.

“Wait in the doorway,” I said. “Close the door behind you, lock it if you can. Keep watch.”

“On it,” she replied, doing as I said.

I started my check of the area. Hannah had asked me to teach her. Apparently I’d impressed her enough with my abilities as a hunter that she wanted to know things, practical things. Like how to survive. Something her father had kept from her out of annoyance and I’m sure some vague notion that, even in the face of Armageddon, there were some things that women didn’t do. An opinion I’d personally not only never shared, but never understood. It was stupid enough before the snow, but now? Such an enforcement of an opinion seemed ludicrous.

I’d agreed to teach her how to hunt and gut, how to clean a weapon. She already knew a lot of the stuff, in the sense of what she had to do, she just hadn’t actually done any of it.

And even if I was dubious about whether or not I’d be a good teacher, or my knowledge was all that great, I wanted to teach her more. What was more impressive was that she was willing to listen. Either she was getting to trust me more, or she was too distracted to get angry. I was hoping it was the first one, because distraction was a problem out here.

I was tempted to have her stand guard while I searched the building, but that didn’t seem fair to her. She had to know how to do this and a line that had to be crossed to reach that knowledge was actually doing it in real life.

“Come on, watch my back, we’ll secure this place,” I said.

“Okay,” Hannah replied, joining me.

We walked through the structure, passing through a door at the back and coming into a hallway that cut the building in half. The door directly across led to an open area with several desks and chairs and a lot of papers scattered around. The other doors led to a small dining area, a bathroom, another office, and the kitchen area I’d seen earlier. We also found what once had been a storage room, another office, and a completely empty room.

All of them were clear.

“So that’s it? We’re good?” Hannah murmured as we came to the empty room, the very last room, and checked it out.

“Yeah, although you can’t let your guard down completely,” I replied.

“Right,” she murmured.

“Now, we’re gonna split up and search this place over. See what you can find. Yell if you find anything dangerous or interesting.”

“Okay.”

I left her in the empty room and went back to the lobby. As I began my search, I briefly considered how best to approach whatever problem Hannah was having. I didn’t think it was like a general problem, because she seemed to be able to talk with everyone else. But after just a few minutes, I turned away from it, because I thought it was best just to leave it alone. I didn’t want to. Honestly, I just wanted to deal with it how I dealt with all my problems: confront it head on. But that wasn’t always the best solution.

Instead, I thought about Pine Lake. And Megan, Delilah, and Elizabeth. Lisa, Melanie, and Lindsay. It was time to go back. Theoretically I could stay out for probably a bit longer given the timeline I’d promised, but I no longer wanted to. At all. I had no reason to stay out here any longer, and I had every reason to go home.

Home.

There was a word I’d never thought I’d be able to say again and actually mean it. For the longest time, home was wherever I was. As much as I liked that nomadic mentality, as much as it appealed to me...apparently, having a fixed home with people I cared very much about was far more appealing. I wanted to go home and see them.

And I wanted to bring the others home and get through the potential problems that might arise from the fact that my ‘harem’, as Lara and now Jessica and Susan were so fond of calling it, had fucking doubled in size while I was out here. I didn’t see Delilah having a problem with it. Elizabeth and Megan, on the other hand, were wildcards. Megan more than Elizabeth. I know Delilah wasn’t actually ‘dating’ me, she was dating Lindsay, but the more I thought about it the more I thought she practically considered herself in a relationship with me and Lindsay, she just didn’t say so. Why? No idea.

Maybe it would concern Lindsay, but Lindsay seemed really laid back.

But the real reason I was thinking about it so much was the reason I was still here and hadn’t decided to leave quite yet.

I wanted to bring something home.

Something practical and very useful. Something big. Something you couldn’t just find anywhere. I wasn’t sure what that was yet, and if I didn’t find it either today or tomorrow, then I’d just move on regardless and hope to find it on the way, but I wanted it.

Why?

I guess if you cut right down to the core of it, I intended it to be an apology.

I felt bad about leaving in the first place. I had to do it, I saw now. It had had the intended effect: I now appreciated Pine Lake and the concept of a fixed home. And certainly I appreciated the fact that I had met Lara, Susan, Jessica, and Hannah. But I still felt bad about it, and I wanted to have something practical and extremely useful in hand when I returned.

My own personal revelation didn’t feel all that important stacked up against the needs of a township, and it was clear that while they didn’t need me to live…

I definitely made it easier.

With a soft sigh, I kept searching.

The Misty Vixen Newsletter (June 2021)

In case you missed it, A Warm Place 5 is now out!

It’s gotten a pretty good reception, so that’s been really nice.

At present, I am working on A Warm Place 6 and I intend to get it, and the second collection, out before the end of June.

I didn’t have too much else to say, May was better than April, but still far from good. I’m hoping June will just be recovery. But then I decided since we’re about halfway through the year, maybe I should give an update, because clearly some of the plans laid out in January have changed. Like, a lot.

So I figured I’d give you a mid-year update and some of my thoughts on things.

Paranormal is still closed out, no change there. I’ll probably stop mentioning it after this.

With my Fantasy Universe, obviously I canceled the serial fiction. I’m pretty sure at this point Demoness is going to be the final series in that universe, but it’s still got a ways to go. Unfortunately, because it’s not a good seller, I can’t have it be the thing I give my primary attention to. I know I said I’d try to get a new Demoness novel out this year, but we’re this far into the year and I haven’t even touched Demoness once, and I have so many other things to do, so…honestly the chances seem low that I’ll get to it in 2021, or even 2022. I’ve got a lot of ideas for future novels, but a lot of the time I do wonder if maybe it’s a stupid idea to, I guess you could say ‘waste’, these cool ideas on a series that most people aren’t ever going to read, and instead save them for something much bigger and better. I guess we’ll see. An idea I do keep coming back to is perhaps doing one more series after or alongside Demoness, one that introduces a new protagonist, but has a much stronger storyline and utilizes the characters and world I’ve already created.

With my Science Fiction universe, I’ve got two more series I want to write. Much like Demoness, Like A Fine Wine did not do well. And unlike Demoness, I had a lot of trouble writing it, which was why I ultimately ended it at Part 4. Consequently, the follow-up series I have planned may be delayed for awhile. The other series, the one that has more emphasis on tragedy and comfort, I actually did some writing for it last month in a fit of creative spontaneity. I have a cover ready to go and a full layout for the whole first novel, as well as strong ideas for the following two novels, so I might actually get this one written. I don’t expect it to do good honestly, and it’s much more slow paced than A Warm Place or Haven. There’s no action, it’s closer to my older ideas, with a group of people just trying to find happiness and build a simple life together after each suffering a personal tragedy. I might get the first novel out before the end of the year, but we’ll see. Even if I do, I don’t intend to make this a main series. I won’t be pressing on relentlessly trying to get it done, I’ll definitely be taking my time with it. After these two series, there’s nothing else.

Plans have changed for the Post-Apocalyptic Universe. I know I said that I had two series left, but after some serious consideration, I realized that the core concept for the next series would make WAY more sense as its own series and universe. Consequently, it will now be the launch series for my new pen name. I feel really good about it. All that leaves is one final series that will serve as a nice capstone. It takes place an appreciable amount of time after the end of Haven, features a brand new and unique protagonist, and will be extremely action and plot heavy. It will be a fundamentally different type of narrative than I’ve ever written before, something far more in line with most other stories nowadays. More of a ‘we’re going to save the world’ type series. I have a lot of cool ideas and I’ve already begun planning it. I think I might actually make it my next big thing after A Warm Place.

Speaking of which…

Plans for A Warm Place have changed a LOT since the beginning. And honestly, while I have a much more solid vision for the series as a whole, it’s still in a state of flux. The thing that’s making me reconsider so much is just how fucking good it’s doing. A Warm Place puts EVERYTHING else to shame in terms of the reception its getting, even Haven. In short: I’d be fucking stupid not to write a lot more A Warm Place novels. Even now, it’s not like I plan to just milk the fuck out of it and stretch it out needlessly for the sake of sales. But I can’t necessarily just stop at the first convenient stopping point any longer. If I have more ideas, it’d be really smart of me to keep going, and I’ve got ideas for at least 12 novels right now, maybe even more. I obviously don’t want to say too much about the future of the series, but I can say that it’s going to get more action-oriented. I feel like I can only write about Chris and the girls wandering around, fucking, surviving, and scavenging for supplies for so long. I mean, that will keep happening, but I am aware that I’ll need more of a plot. And I have one! And another one for after that, and one more after that.

The current plan is to keep writing A Warm Place as fast as I can, while simultaneously beginning work on the new Post-Apocalyptic Series in the background. Ultimately, I’ll launch it and try to get people to start reading it while also beginning to wind down A Warm Place novels, and then the transition between the two series will hopefully not be too much of a financial burden on me sales-wise.

The only other thing I want to talk about is the wildcard. There’s always a wildcard with me, because I have a lot of ideas and poor self control. I REALLY want to write a goddamned caveman primeval harem story, and while I have one planned for my new pen name, it’s obvious to me that I won’t get around to it for a year, maybe two, possibly even three. So I’m seriously considering writing a more basic, low-stakes series set in that same universe.

Would you read that? I don’t want to talk too much about it, but I don’t like blindsiding people so I’ll say it’s not like a straight-up 15,000 BCE caveman style harem because I don’t think I’m skilled enough to pull that off. More imagine caveman level society in a world with a few different races and some basic magic. Because I honestly really just want to write some cool village-building, resource-gathering, survival-harem caveman series for fun.

Let me know what you think. For now, onwards with A Warm Place.

A Warm Place 5 Preview

Work is proceeding on the next A Warm Place novel. Here’s the first chapter.

If you want to also read the second chapter, you can do so if you are a 1$/month Patron over on my Patreon!

I opened the door the second I recognized Jessica’s voice.

Though I didn’t let my guard down completely, given the fact that she could’ve been here under duress, used as bait, or, hell, maybe she’d turned against us. Didn’t seem likely, but it wasn’t totally out of the question.

I slowly began to raise my pistol as, in the blowing whiteout that reduced visibility quite a bit, I saw not one but two figures.

Neither were armed though, and the other was a woman and another redhead, though that was all I could tell about her, bundled up as she was.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I stepped back to make way. Jessica and the other woman stumbled in, panting.

“I left my husband,” she managed, leaning against the nearest wall.

Great. All at once, a few pieces fell into place. At the very least, I realized that Jessica was making good on the promise I’d made her: if she really needed my help, she could come to me and I would help her. I wasn’t upset, and I didn’t plan on revoking that, but damn, she could’ve picked a better time for it.

“Did he follow?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” she replied.

I leaned out carefully and looked around, but it was practically useless. Visibility was down to barely ten feet. I couldn’t even see the trees at the edge of the property. I didn’t see anyone moving out there and no one was creeping up alongside the house. It would have to do. I shut the door and locked it tightly.

“Chris?! What’s going on?!” Susan called from the kitchen.

Right. Didn’t want to keep them in suspense. “It’s okay! It’s Jessica! Come here!”

“Jessica?” Lara called, and both women began walking closer.

“I’m so sorry to drop in like this,” Jessica said, looking at me as she leaned against the wall.

“I’m impressed you made it through the storm,” I replied. “And glad.” I glanced at the other woman, who had yet to speak. Her body language was standoffish, if not outright hostile. Her face was mostly hidden by a scarf and hat, only her eyes visible. They were extremely blue and they looked a lot like Jessica’s.

In fact, if she wasn’t standing right there, I’d have assumed I was looking at Jessica.

Those eyes were staring daggers at me, and they didn’t look away when I looked into them.

A sister, maybe?

Lara and Susan came into the hallway.

“Jessica,” Lara repeated, coming over and wrapping her in a hug. “What happened? Why did you go out in a fucking blizzard!? You could have died!”

“I know, I...didn’t think it through,” Jessica replied. “It was kind of sudden.”

“So what’s actually going on?” Susan asked. I glanced at her and noticed she was kind of standoffish right now, too.

Though that was really her natural demeanor.

“I got into a fight with Travis, my husband. It...escalated. I…” She broke off as Lara stepped away, shivering violently, and I realized she must be freezing.

“Come on, come to the living room, by the fire,” I said.

She nodded and she and the other woman followed us out of the hallway and into the living room. They both went to stand before the fire and I crouched down, throwing on another log and getting it a bit more blazing with the poker. “Did he hit you?” I asked.

“He shoved me,” she replied. “I hit him.”

“It’s about fucking time,” the other woman said, speaking for the first time.

“Hannah!”

“He deserved it.” I looked up and saw her taking off her scarf and hat. She let down short, vividly red hair, and as she revealed a strikingly beautiful face, I saw that there was no question: she was related to Jessica.

Had to be her younger sister, or cousin, maybe?

Jessica took off her own hat and tried to shake the snow from herself. “Anyway, uh, I left. We left. I remembered how to get here, from the time Lara showed me, and, well…” She looked directly at me now, blushing, uncomfortable. “You told me you’d help me. If I really needed it. And I really need it.”

“I’ll help you,” I said, and the relief on her face was obvious. As I stood up, she embraced me, and I hugged her back, held her tight.

Hannah’s body language definitely turned hostile and she crossed her arms, glaring at me.

What was her deal?

Did she know I was fucking Jessica? I guess that could be it. Could be awkward.

This wasn’t awkward, though. This was anger.

“Thank you,” Jessica murmured into my chest. “God, I’m so tired.”

“How did you actually make it here?” Lara asked.

“It wasn’t all that bad when we set out, but we did get lost for a bit. Honestly, I think it was just luck that we managed to get here,” Jessica replied.

“It was extremely lucky,” Susan murmured.

As Jessica disengaged from me, Hannah stepped closer to me. The way she did it kicked on some reactive instincts and I shifted my weight. I seriously thought she was going to swing on me or something. She hesitated, staring at me hard.

“You’re Chris,” she said.

“Yes,” I replied, wondering if I was going to get an answer as to why she was so pissed at me. The thought that maybe she was just pissed in general because she’d been through a trying, maybe even traumatic event, occurred to me, but no, it was obvious that it was at me.

“Thank you,” she said through gritted teeth after a few seconds, like she had to force it out.

“For…”

“Talking her into leaving that prick,” Hannah replied.

“Hannah!” Jessica hissed again.

“He is a fucking prick!”

“He is your father,” she replied.

“Whoa, wait, what?” I asked.

“Hannah’s your daughter?” Susan asked at the same time.

“Yeah...didn’t that ever come up?” Jessica asked.

But I was staring at Hannah, then looking over at Jessica, comparing the two. I was right, they were related, but…

Hannah didn’t look very young, then again, Jessica was forty years old. Though she didn’t quite look it. Hannah looked older, I thought maybe a few years older than me, but now that I looked at her more closely...yeah. She did look younger, youthful, and not just from good genes.

“What do you mean?” I asked finally, coming back around to what Hannah had originally said. “How did I talk her into it?”

“I don’t know, but that’s what she insinuated,” Hannah replied.

I looked curiously at Jessica, though the thought going through my head at that moment was that it made a little more sense as to why she didn’t like me.

I was fucking her mom, and she had to know that. Or, well technically I had fucked her mom at least once.

Jessica brushed some hair back from her face. She was blushing now. “When we...met, it made me think. About a lot of things. When you asked me why I was-” She glanced at Hannah. “-um. Why I was, uh…” she stumbled and her mind seemed to go blank.

Hannah sighed explosively. “God, mom! I know already, okay!? I know you’re fucking him and I don’t care! Dad’s a fucking asshole!”

“Hannah!” Jessica cried, part shocked, part exasperated. “You have no tact, you know that?!” The way she said it made me think that it was something she’d said hundreds of times and from the angry, volatile gaze in Hannah’s eyes, I could tell that was probably true. Or rather, she seemed like the kind of person who didn’t bother with tact.

Being as attractive as she was, she could get away with it.

I pumped the brakes there and put that in check. She didn’t seem like a teenager, although she very well could be, and honestly I was reluctant to go to that age. Not that I should even be thinking thoughts like that when I’d already hooked up with Jessica though.

Jessica looked back at me. “When you asked me why I was-” She stumbled again, but pressed on. “Why I was cheating on my husband, it made me think about it. Really think about it. And I started realizing a lot of things. And it ultimately led to the argument and us being here and…” She sighed softly and fell silent, looking just tired now.

This was too much. I glanced at Lara and Susan. Lara looked concerned, Susan looked…

Mad.

Crap. Now I had two of them glaring daggers at me.

And I at least knew why with Susan: I’d never run any of this by her as even a possibility. I really should’ve mentioned that I’d made a promise like that to Jessica, but I didn’t think it would come up so soon!

“Okay, um, this is a lot,” I said, stepping up and taking control of the situation again, because this was what at least some of the women in the room seemed to either want or be comfortable with, “so why don’t the two of you sit here and catch your breath and warm up. We’ll, uh, we were just finishing up lunch, so you can join us.”

“Fuck, I need to check on that,” Susan muttered. “Be right back.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and I looked at Lara, who gave me a worried look. No doubt she was concerned about something similar to myself: Susan was very close to blowing up at one or both of us. I can’t imagine she reacted to abrupt change very well, especially if she was already concerned about our living situation.

And that set off a fuse of anxiety inside my own head even as I thought it.

Now, instead of providing for three mouths, I was providing for five.

Shit.

And I had exactly one bullet left in the rifle.

Double shit.

Susan came back a moment later. “It’s fine, I took it off the stove.” She was clenching her jaw and a tendon in her slim white neck was taut as a bowstring as she stared hard at me. “Can I please speak to you somewhere else?” she asked tersely.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’ll be right back, just...relax here.”

“Okay,” Jessica said. Then she said, “thank you, again.” Then she added, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, and you’re welcome,” I replied, and set off.

Susan and Lara followed after me as we walked down the hall and finally came to Susan’s bedroom. Once we walked inside, she slammed the door.

“What the fuck is this, Chris?!” she snapped, stepping right up to me and staring at me with obvious fury.

Submission be damned this woman did not back down when she was pissed.

I had to admit, I really liked that about her.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “When we met, after we had sex and I got an idea of how shitty her relationship with her husband was, I...offered her help. If she ever really needed it. It was the right thing to do.”

Susan glared at me and crossed her arms.

“Susan,” I said, more firmly, “it was the right thing to do.”

She stared at me for a few seconds longer, holding my gaze with her angry green eyes, then she sighed and relaxed ever so slightly. “Fine,” she replied begrudgingly.

“You really want her to stay in an abusive relationship?” Lara asked.

Susan sighed more heavily and threw up her arms. “I said ‘fine’! I just…” She looked at me again and her expression grew less angry, more worried. “Chris, this is a lot to take in, okay?! God, this house is just big enough for three of us, and now there’s five of us!? We’re doing okay for food right now, but this will cut our reverses almost in half!”

“I know, I know,” I said. “I didn’t even know she had a daughter…” I muttered.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mention that,” Lara said.

“There was no reason to. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is: they’re here, they need help, we’re going to help them...right? We’re agreed?” I asked, looking at Lara, then at Susan.

“Yeah,” Susan said after a few seconds. “Obviously I’m not going to kick them out. They can stay here. But we’ll obviously need to rearrange things.”

“We’ll get it figured out later,” I said. “Let’s go eat for now. That’ll calm everything down.” I paused and looked at Lara. “Is there any reason Hannah would hate me? Beyond the fact that she knows I’m fucking her mom?”

“I don’t know, but I noticed that, too. If looks could kill you’d be fucking six feet under.”

“Well she’s got no tact,” Susan said, “so you’ll probably find out soon enough when she screams it at you, if it’s more than that.”

“I guess you’d know,” I replied.

She was turning towards the door but she spun back to face me. “I have tact you fucking giant prick!”

“How’s that not a compliment?” I replied.

“You are insufferable sometimes, you know that?!” she snapped, and I actually couldn’t tell if she was angry or just mock angry.

I decided to test it. I reached out and traced a finger across her throat. “Keep it up, and I’ll show you suffering,” I replied.

She gasped softly and shuddered, closing her eyes briefly. Okay, either mock anger or I’d just hit her with a hard injection of horniness and pushed aside real anger.

“L-let’s just get lunch,” she managed.

I laughed. “Yes. Let’s.”

We went back out.

When we returned to the living room, I found the atmosphere to be uncomfortable and awkward. They were both sitting on the couch at opposite ends, not looking at each other. They seemed to have warmed up now, at least.

“Come on, let’s get lunch,” I said, and pointed them towards the dining room.

“Thank you,” Jessica replied as they got up.

We took a few moments to get the mountain lion stew Susan had been preparing. She’d made a lot of it with the intention of freezing the leftovers, but as it was, it was just enough for five of us to have a full meal’s worth.

“What is this?” Hannah asked once we were all settled.

“Vegetables and mountain lion,” I replied.

“Where’d you find a mountain lion?” she asked, and I noticed a little bit, just the tiniest bit of edge came off her voice.

“Little ways up north. Susan and I had to fight it.”

“You killed a mountain lion?”

“Technically Susan did,” I replied.

She looked at me, then at Susan, then down at her food and didn’t say anything as she began eating. We all ate, and for several minutes, no one spoke. I could tell that Jessica was still pretty shaken up over the whole thing. She looked pale and unhappy and stressed, and I found myself wishing there was something I could do to help her.

Maybe I could give her a good, hard dicking. An orgasm would help her relax, I think.

Or maybe I was just thinking with my cock.

I glanced briefly at Hannah. Shit, this was gonna get awkward fast.

“So, uh, listen,” I said after several minutes, “this house isn’t really big or anything. There’s just two bedrooms. I was thinking Lara and I could move into the master bedroom,” I glanced at Susan, and she just shrugged and nodded, “and you two could take Lara’s room. We’ve only got two beds, although I guess we could move one of the couches in there…”

“No, I don’t care about sharing at this point,” Hannah said. “We’ve had enough shitty sleeping situations that it’s whatever.”

“That will be fine,” Jessica said. She looked around as she chewed on her lower lip, and her gaze came to rest on Susan. “I’m really sorry about this,” she said. “I know Lara and Chris had at least some idea something like this could happen, but obviously they never got around to telling you, and I’m so sorry to impose like this, I just-”

“Jessica,” Susan said, “it’s okay. I know. You didn’t have a choice. I’d rather be inconvenienced than have a good person in a bad situation.”

“What makes you think I’m a good person?” Jessica muttered, looking down at the table suddenly.

“Lara trusts and likes you, that’s good enough for me,” Susan replied.

“Well...thank you. Really,” she said after a long moment.

“You’re welcome,” Susan replied.

We went back to eating after that, and no one seemed to be able to think of anything else to say.

The Misty Vixen Newsletter (May 2021)

Hello everyone. Unfortunately I don’t have a whole lot of news for you.

If you missed it, A Warm Place 4 dropped last month.

I had really, really hoped to have more done by now, but as it stands, I unfortunately haven’t got very far into A Warm Place 5. April was a bad month for me and honestly I’m just super frustrated. Really, A Warm Place 5 should have been DONE by now but it’s just really shitty for me right now, and has been for most of April.

The good news, at least, is that I have the cover art and I have the novel completely planned out and I’m about 1/6 done. All that needs doing is the actual writing. I still intend for A Warm Place 5 to be out in May.

Sorry I don’t have better news. Wish me luck.

A Warm Place 4 Preview

Hey, finally making some good headway on A Warm Place 4! If I’m very lucky, I might actually manage to get it done by the end of the week, but that’s a big if.

For now, here is the first chapter. If you want to also see the second chapter, check it out on my Patreon!

I was alone.

Alone was nothing new to me. I had been alone a lot of times in my life. But this time, it felt different.

I was alone and I was thinking of chemotherapy.

Carefully stalking a deer through a snowbound, heavily-wooded hinterland somewhere in northern Kansas, or maybe even southern Nebraska now, I wasn’t sure, I tried to make as little noise as possible, and keep my mind from drifting too far.

But that got difficult, I was learning, when you spent too long in hard isolation.

Icy trees surrounded me in all directions and I was careful to keep the deer in my sights, my rifle at the ready. I wasn’t too keen on my odds of bagging this deer, but I was kind of desperate right now because my food was really low.

As in, I had like a meal left low.

But chemotherapy kept creeping into my brains the same way I was creeping up on this deer, trying to ignore it all: the cold, the hunger, the encroaching darkness and storm. I knew a storm was on the way and I’d have to get in soon.

I was thinking about how, in some cases of extra bad cancer, they sometimes tried something desperate: double chemo. But they weren’t supposed to because it carried all sorts of crazy risks, but it had a better chance of wiping out the cancer.

That was what I was doing right now, though to be completely honest, I wasn’t sure exactly what the risks of what I was doing entailed.

I mean, some were obvious.

That I could starve to death, or freeze to death, or get mauled by an animal, or killed by another human looking to rob me, or worse.

But that was just a fact of life nowadays. Those risks were risks I had faced, endured, and ultimately triumphed over time and time again over the past year and a half, ever since I’d decided to set out into this new, frozen, post-apocalyptic wasteland on my own. I was used to being by myself, I was used to wandering for long stretches of time alone.

This, however, was different.

Abruptly, the opportunity to make the shot appeared and I knew it was now or never. I froze, took aim, and fired.

And missed.

Just barely, I saw some of the deer’s fur fly off in a puff, but I had missed. The deer took off in an instant, vanishing from sight into the trees, galloping away to safety. I let out a long, heavy sigh of disappointment as I lowered the rifle, my breath appearing on the air in a haze.

Well, shit.

There went food for the next few days.

I looked around, knowing that I was either going to have to find manmade shelter of some kind, or a cave, or make some sort of really miserable lean-to, because I’d lost my tent to a scrap with a pair of wolves three days ago. It had been shredded all to hell.

My bow had also gone during that battle, snapped into pieces after my big ass fell on it. Not that it mattered quite as much, as I was out of arrows at that point anyway. I’d been doing some hard living over the past month, and my supply level reflected that.

Finally, I saw what appeared to be a lone structure up ahead, barely visible through the trees and the dim gray fading light.

I set off, and as I began walking, it started to snow.

I glanced up, a little startled. That always freaked me out a little bit, the way it could just begin to snow in perfect silence. Sometimes it was obvious, mostly through the winds, and I knew that some kind of storm was coming, but sometimes I’d wait three hours for it to actually manifest, and then just abruptly, big fat snowflakes were falling out of the sky in all directions, not a sound to be heard. It was oddly creepy.

In some vague way, it reminded me of spiders, and how they were perfectly silent.

You only noticed them when you saw them or, God forbid, felt them.

Spiders largely dying out as a result of this apocalypse, or at least dying out on the surface and in a lot of buildings, was one of the things I put under ‘benefits of Armageddon’. Yeah, I know, I know, they’re crucial to the ecosystem and they aren’t inherently evil or anything, but I fucking hated them and the world was fucked anyway, right?

As I headed through the falling snow, picking up the pace, my body already most of the way to numb thanks to all the time I’d spent outdoors today, I kept thinking.

It had been three months since I’d helped bring Pine Lake back from the brink of death, since I’d gotten shot and damn near gotten myself killed.

I had healed up and settled nicely into my new home. Honestly, the motel room at Pine Lake was the closest I’d ever come to a home since I began wandering, and it had felt nice. The first month was good.

Lindsay moved in with us, and they got a second bed, really more of a mattress they put in the corner, where she and Delilah tended to sleep. They had definitely become a couple, though it hadn’t stopped either of them from having sex with me regularly. Delilah more than Lindsay, I think she was intimidated by me, though she at least didn’t seem threatened by me. So that was nice. Elizabeth really liked me, and we’d spent a lot of time together.

The same was true of Megan.

Lisa wasn’t sure how to feel about us. She’d been awkward in the days following my recovery, but finally, after some hot sex and then some more hot sex, she’d eventually settled into a casual relationship where she tended to jump me once or maybe twice a week if she was feeling really up to it. The same thing had happened with Melanie.

God, I loved fucking that woman.

And that was my life for the next month, and it was really fucking good.

I helped out. I built things. I hunted. I protected people. I harvested and gathered and salvaged from the countryside and the dead part of the city.

I had great sex with the women in my life.

All the while, living in fear of the wanderlust bug.

It left me alone for a solid month, but near the end of that month, I felt the first tickles of that urge. That intense desire. That lust to wander, to just get out and be free and explore uncharted lands. Meet new people, see new places, do new things.

Test myself against the untamed wild.

For two weeks, I ignored it, but it got worse. During the third week, I began trying things, going out camping or staying up at the hunting lodge with the hunters. It helped, but only a little. The fourth and final week was the worst.

I felt anxious and irritable and sometimes like I couldn’t breathe.

I felt somehow caught.

It didn’t occur to me until Elizabeth gave birth that I was waiting for some event to transpire, something to somehow give me the go ahead to make a decision.

That event was it.

I ended up talking with the women about the problem, listening to suggestions, bouncing ideas off each other, and ultimately, this was what I had come up with.

I would leave, I would head north, into deep isolation, and then I would come back after, at most, two months.

That was about one month ago.

I didn’t want to just do what I normally did, although that was what I had done during the first week. I was exuberant and blissful as I hit the highway and headed north. I ran into a caravan of people, traders and travelers who seemed on the level, heading south. I spent the night with them and had amazing sex with the forty-two-year old platinum blonde who used to be a schoolteacher after being a model and now ran this group.

She could suck dick like few others I’d run into.

I pointed them towards Pine Lake and told them they’d find kind people and good trading there, then I’d gone on my merry way.

Shortly after leaving the caravan I began to feel guilty for feeling so good. I was practically high I felt so damned good.

I ran into a few more traders, and finally I stopped at a small simple encampment that seemed kind of like a way-station for travelers along the highway. It was built into the remains of a partially collapsed warehouse of some kind, and half a dozen people maintained it. Now it served as an inn. I’d spent the night and after flirting, took one of them to bed. She had been pretty hardcore, had a scar down one side of her face, and more on her body when I’d gotten her clothes off. She had muscles, and short brown hair, and she fucked rough.

It was a good night, and she was the last chick I’d hooked up with.

The next morning, I’d gathered my things, ate breakfast, made a few trades, and then I’d struck off in an almost totally random direction, into the nearest woods.

I was out here to burn out this need to wander, and after thinking on it for awhile, I had decided that the best way to do it was to go into total isolation.

And it had worked.

I had yet to see a single human being, let alone speak with one, since leaving that way-station.

Three solid weeks.

It was the longest I’d gone without human contact.

“Here we are,” I muttered as I reached the structure. It was some old, very old cabin, something that looked like it had been built a century ago. It had a chimney, it was dark, and it looked intact. Those were the only three things I actually cared about at the moment.

“Let’s make sure we’re safe,” I murmured.

I had learned that for whatever reason, talking out loud helped offset the...negative aspects of the isolation.

I walked around the exterior of the building, checking for threats and to see if it was as intact as it looked. The windows, I saw, were boarded over, but this looked to have been done a long time ago. Perhaps even before Armageddon. I didn’t see any people around, nor any wolves or bears or cougars. I thought I was far enough north that they might be a problem. Or mountain lions. Or were those the same thing?

Shit, I didn’t know.

I walked up to the front door and knocked on it firmly a few times.

“Is anyone in there?” I asked. Waited. Nothing. I knocked again, harder. “Is anyone in there?” I asked louder.

Still nothing. The place felt like a mausoleum.

I tried the handle. It turned, and the door opened when I pushed. It was dark inside, the thin twilight not nearly enough to help me see. With a sigh, I reached onto my belt and detached the miniature lantern there. It was solar-powered and really useful. I’d found it on a dead man a week ago, probably just someone like me, way out in the middle of nowhere. He’d been mauled to death by wolves, I assumed, and left to freeze in a lot of blood.

The kill had looked old, months at least.

It occurred to me that this would be an extremely lonely and miserable place to die.

The light came on and seemed to fill the interior of the single-room structure. I quickly played it across the inside, finding myself looking at hardly anything. There was a mattress on the floor, no bedding or pillows. A single chair. A fireplace. A toilet and sink off in one corner. I saw the remains of some cabinets that had no doubt been chopped up for firewood, and the scattered remnants of other random stuff on the wooden floor.

It was empty of life, at least.

I got inside, closed and locked the door to the best of my ability, then set my shit down on the floor beside the mattress with a loud groan. I was tired. It had been a long damn day, even though it really hadn’t, it just felt like it.

It was December now. Actually, by my count, and I could be wrong, we were nearing the beginning of 2039.

As if that meant anything anymore.

The only thing it meant to me was that at this point I was another year older, (my birthday was in November, oh what a birthday Megan and Delilah and the others had made it), and that the days were shorter than ever.

I think we were past the equinox, which meant that technically the days were beginning to get longer now, but that wouldn’t matter practically to me for at least another few months. It got dark at five fucking PM and that sucked shit.

Plus, it was winter.

Although it was winter all the time now, it still did actually get generally colder and more miserable during this time of year. Blizzards and snowstorms and absolutely bleak frozen days seemed more common during winter. Like today. It had to be below zero.

I saw that there was still a bit of burning fuel left by the fireplace, so I arranged it all as best I could and got a fire going. I sat there for a few minutes, not thinking of much at all. In fact, I considered that a luxury. As that warm washed over me and took me momentarily to heaven, it was like my brain and all my worries and anxieties and bad feelings were put on hold. It was really nice, and I now looked forward to it immensely.

But soon enough, the bad thoughts began leaking back in, so I got back to work.

First thing was first: I went back outside while there was still daylight left, though not much of it, and quickly began gathering up enough firewood to last me the night. It took me fifteen minutes and by the time I headed back inside, the last of the light was totally gone, and darkness swallowed the world with a gloomy absolution.

Stacking the wood a safe distance from the fireplace, I then set my thermos beside the fire so that it could heat my last meal that I had on me.

Tomorrow was going to be an…

Interesting day. If not a desperate one.

In the past, I’d gone for about two days at a stretch without any food, just water, and it fucking sucked. I knew I could go a lot longer, the problem was, hunger fucked with you. It fucked with your ability to focus and concentrate, it made you weak as it sapped your strength, made decision-making difficult. So it tipped the odds out of my favor, the longer I went without food. Once the thermos was in place, I began the process of methodically searching the cabin over.

I wondered who it had belonged to and why it was out here. Maybe some old miner or factory worker had it built, or built it himself, way back in the day so he could just fuck off and be by himself when he wanted to. Maybe there was a nice pond or river nearby, good hunting, (though that wasn’t my experience right now, that deer was the first I’d seen in days). Maybe he’d retired out here. I’d heard enough of those ‘disappear into the mountains when I get old’ stories and fantasies. I wondered how long it had been since this place had seen a human.

There wasn’t anything worthwhile in the cabin. Nothing tucked away or hidden or shoved up under something.

Nothing in the roof or ceiling, as far as I could tell.

The place didn’t even have a closet.

With a heavy sigh, I made my bed, wanting to get the physical labor out of the way as quickly as possible. I was exhausted, but I knew I’d stay up for a few hours more, then wake with dawn’s first light. Hopefully earlier, so I could get a jump on the day’s chores. I put my pack down for a pillow and got out my thermal blanket.

With that done, I took off my boots and sat down in front of the fire after dragging the chair over. And there I just sat for awhile.

It felt good to sit, and to know I didn’t have to get up if I didn’t want to for at least an hour or so. Unless there was some kind of emergency.

But I felt fear creeping over me.

This was the worst part of the day. The absolute worst. This was the part of the day where night came on and I was winding down and the loneliness set in.

I wasn’t normally a lonely person. I mean, yeah, sometimes I missed people. Sometimes I missed my family. Sometimes I missed some of the women I’d slept with who made an impression. I missed Mary. I hoped she was okay, wherever she was now.

But after the first week in absolute isolation, the loneliness had really started to settle in.

It had caught me off-guard, and after a few days it was so bad that it made me want to go home. I’d actually almost seriously considered heading back to Pine Lake. I knew enough to figure out how to get back, between the basic cardinal directions and a map I had of the larger area and my knowledge of a few highways, I knew I could do it.

But I’d held out.

I’d been a little skeptical at first, wondering if maybe this intense loneliness was a thing that would fade, if it was some anomaly. But it wasn’t. After another few days, I realized that it came on at night, usually around bedtime. I’d lie in bed, whatever bed was that night, and miss Megan and Delilah and Elizabeth terribly.

Sometimes I’d missed them so horribly it hurt and I damn near wanted to cry.

Crying wasn’t exactly easy for me.

But as bitter and miserable and wretchedly lonely those feelings were, in a way, I actually relished them intensely.

Because it meant something.

It meant this was working.

The Misty Vixen Newsletter (April 2021)

This Newsletter will be a bit short.

First off, if you missed it, A Warm Place Collection 1 is out now. It contains A Warm Place - Prelude, A Warm Place 1 - 3, and a bonus short story set in between Prelude and A Warm Place.

March was kind of all over the place. I ended up taking a somewhat extended break before finally getting around to beginning work on A Warm Place 4, and some things have cropped up in my life. Suffice to say, other aspects of my life are getting in the way of writing.

I was hoping to be much closer to finished on A Warm Place 4 by now, but as it stands, I’m just over halfway there. I’m still intending to get it out in April, but now it’s definitely going to be mid April, not early April. Perhaps even late April.

That’s it. Hopefully I’ll have better news in a month.

Can People Make Up Their Minds - Part 2

So I’m frustrated again.

SPOILERS FOR A WARM PLACE AS A WHOLE

I get it. Some people aren’t going to like my work. Some are going to absolutely hate it. And some of those people will feel the need to tell me about it. This, in and of itself, is whatever. I don’t need everyone to like my work, I don’t need every review to be glowing. Honestly, the more critical reviews are really helpful and I welcome them.

But I’ve been coming across more people getting pissy about the nature of the relationships in A Warm Place.

Quick question: What the FUCK happened to letting characters develop?

I’ve largely got two problems with these complaints.

The first is that: Have some fucking patience. Like, Jesus Christ, they aren’t going to fall in love IMMEDIATELY. This shit takes time, and not everyone needs to fall in love! Some people can just be sex friends. Like, just because characters aren’t technically dating or in love doesn’t mean there’s no emotional connection there. That was kind of a dynamic I was playing at. Although Chris and Delilah’s connection is purely transactional at first, they grow to really like each other. And the most annoying part is, Delilah basically does fall at his feet and worship him. But just because they acknowledge the fact that they aren’t outright dating, and that she ends up dating another woman that Chris also fucks, none of that matters? Why?

Second: Again, seriously, what the fuck happened to storylines and character development? What happened to letting things play out? Chris and Megan meet under hostile circumstances in a hostile world. Is it truly that difficult to get that it’ll take time for them to warm up to each other? I mean shit, they already fucked within like a day of meeting each other. Their relationship GROWS over the course of the novels.

What the hell is happening to people’s expectations? You can’t just have everything you want immediately or there’s hardly any point to anything.

And this is coming from someone who actually accelerates relationships and sex WAY more than is realistic. In short: I feel like I’m already giving people what they want (relationships/sex) faster than is realistic, and yet they’re telling me IT ISN’T FAST ENOUGH.

Whatever, rant over.

Still having fun with A Warm Place 4, but I’m beginning to get the feeling that some people are going to really hate it. I wish I was better at writing bland bullshit that appeals to everyone.

The Misty Vixen Newsletter (March 2021)

 
 

First thing is first.

A Warm Place 3 is out! I managed to get it done just before March.

I didn’t think I’d actually get the whole thing written, edited, formatted, and published in a month, but I did it in 27 days! What sucks is that if I’d had my shit together, I could’ve had it done in like 20 days.

Anyway, I’m now recovering and taking a little break.

Next thing that’s coming out is A Warm Place Prelude - 3 Collected. After waffling on it for awhile, I finally decided to not only do the Collections, but to add in bonus shorts. I think I’ll just be taking whether or not to add bonus shorts on a case-by-case basis. This short will take place in between Prelude & A Warm Place 1, and feature Mary from Prelude.

Before I talk about A Warm Place 4, which contains some spoilers, I’ll talk about everything else.

I’m in a strange place right now, but it’s a good strange, for once. A Warm Place is doing really well, and it’s finally taking the pressure off. Remember how many times I’ve talked about finding something to take the pressure off? I finally found it. Consequently, I don’t feel like I desperately need to be working on two projects simultaneously.

I still want to get my second pen name ready, because A Warm Place can’t last forever, and it’s ultimately just a temporary stop-gap, because the problems with Misty Vixen that I’ve already outlined will still exist. But at the moment, I’ve got 12 novels planned for A Warm Place, and that will last me through the rest of 2021, probably even somewhat into 2022.

Now obviously I want a good six month or so buffer between when I start working on the new name and when I launch it so that I can have another buffer after launch, but for the next few months, I want to kind of take it easy. So I’m going to be working on A Warm Place most of the time, and on the side, I’ll FINALLY get to indulge in some fan fiction! I’ll also be writing a few incest stories. I’ve got several set in the A Warm Place universe that I think about a lot.

My first erotic fan fiction is going to be the Dragon Age one with Fiona, Lysette, and a lot of other girls, and I’ll get nude fan art of them as I can, for the full effect. I’ve also been scouting around for a place to host my fan fiction and I think I’m going to go with Archive of Our Own. It seems to be fairly NSFW friendly. I’ll also be hosting it here on the site, though honestly I want to try and find a better way of hosting.

After the Collection, I’ll get to work on A Warm Place 4. Which I’d like to talk about now.

If you don’t want to know anything at all about what’s coming next, stop reading now. Spoilers.

I initially had a plan for how I wanted to handle A Warm Place as a whole. Those of you who have read it in its original incarnation (should) know by now that I began the new series chronologically before the original version, and that I have intended to include a rewritten, somewhat reimagined edition of that version. To be clear, it will be an entire rewrite. I’ll just be using what I wrote as a guideline, taking the best parts and the parts I liked and throwing out whatever doesn’t fit, and add in a lot more.

After some consideration, I finally decided it would be best to make that rewrite happen as A Warm Place 4, 5, &, 6.

However, in order to make it work, Chris needs to be alone at the beginning of A Warm Place 4. This would break a pretty big rule of harem novels, even though A Warm Place isn’t necessarily a harem series…although it kind of is. This is why I didn’t specifically title it as such, even though it has many of the trappings of a harem story, most of them intentional. That rule being that the protagonist doesn’t lose all the women in his harem at once.

I believe I have found a way to make it work, and obviously I’ll be introducing new characters (the ones from the original version, Lara, Susan, etc.), and I’ll be getting back to Megan and Delilah and the others in the future. The thing is, I’m fairly confident in my ability to tell this story decently, I’m less confident in my casual reader base who will just be angry that Megan and Delilah and Elizabeth are no longer in the story and just stop reading.

I’m even more nervous about this because A Warm Place is doing like really well. I finally feel like I’m actually succeeding as a writer with this series, and here I am taking a big narrative risk on it.

But I feel like it has to be this way, and am praying people will just trust me.

So yeah, the first collection will be out sometime this month, and A Warm Place 4 will be out probably early April.

Wish me luck and thank you so much for the love and support you’ve given A Warm Place thus far!