in the pitch
dark. Keyed up. Hyperventilating because they’re scared and
claustrophobic and horny and there’s not much air. Reaching
out to touch the protective sigil above them. They’d be
capable of seeing things even without priests prompting them.’Hayden rolled carefully onto his side to face me, his shoulder nearly brushing the roof. ‘Horny?’
I shrugged, thinking that my words had run away with me. ‘Perceived peril makes people more aroused. It’s freshman psychology.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well thank God it’s not just me then.’
I laughed, mostly from tension, and he chuckled with me.
‘So … Did it make you horny, working down here?’ he wondered.
I blushed and ran my tongue across my lips. ‘Sometimes.’ My voice sounded weak. ‘It’s the silence…’
‘Did you ever do anything about it?’
Those eyes would not let me go. I bit my lip and nodded.
‘Down here?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
He grinned, soft and slow. ‘I’m not sure that’s good archaeological practice.’
Plot:
Non-supernatural. Alex is an archaeology student
working on
an American-run dig in Turkey. She has the hots for her postgraduate
team leader, Hayden. Having excavated almost single-handedly a
mysterious and very cramped underground room, she takes him down to
witness the ritual chamber she believes she has found. It is incredibly
claustrophobic down there and they both start to react to the
pressure...Sexual Themes: straight
Notes: This
was a story I wrote for an online competition. It had to be butchered
in order to fit into their strict word limit (1000 words, as far as I
remember) and not surprisingly didn't win. I rewrote it back to its
natural length - 2.5k - and submitted it to Violet Blue who was editing
Best Women's Erotica 2009. At that time I had no idea whatsoever what a
prestigious anthology this was, or how much competition there was for
each of the 21 story slots. I just thought Violet Blue was the coolest
person in the genre and that I'd love to work for her. I'm
totally knocked out to have won my place in this collection.In her introduction to this anthology Violet Blue describes me as "the supremely talented Janine Ashbless" ... which I want to have carved on my gravestone!
Story roots ... I'd been reading a - ahem- "fringe archaeology" book called Netherworld by Robert Temple, as part of researching a horror-fiction project I was working on. It's all about underground oracles of the ancient world, and even if the theories espoused are completely off-the-wall it does contain detailed descriptions of several of them - including a long quote from Pausanius' Description of Greece about the oracle at Lebadea. This sparked my imagination at once.
Also archaeology - combining academic intellectualism and practical outdoorsy toughness and the lure of exploring the mysterious past - is about the sexiest career I can think of. TimeTeam notwithstanding.
