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It's been eighteen months or so since we last met up with CatrionaM, in which time... the girl's been a veritable writing machine, almost doubling the number of stories she has here, and venturing into some really fascinating areas. As she explains....

CM: I used to write such vanilla stories!

ES: You think so? Trans-gender, fetish, femdom, bi... not the first places I'd look for "boy meets girl"!

CM: Welllll... these ones are from the newer lot. But, okay, even my older pieces were rarely in standard FM categories. But they were very much vanilla. Whereas now almost everything I post - no, scratch that - everything I post is more or less kink tinted, invariably femdom, but occasionally a little more fetish.

ES: What changed, do you think?

CM: Practice! I also think I have massively improved as an author. Both in the craft sense, of simply writing better, regardless of the subject matter, but also in the sense of being better at getting the sexual energy across to the readers. It's not quite reflected in my ratings, but I think these are due to niche (or even niche - within - niche) character of my stories.

ES: I know what you mean. Most of my stories are in the Oral category, but the ones that get the most readers are in places like Anal, Slut Wife, Threesomes, Voyeurism....

CM: I think erotica/smut - I dislike the label of erotica because it makes me think of heaving bosoms and flower of her womanhood and the like - is a fairly limited genre.

One tends to either tell the same story numerous times in different versions that only vary the props, or go deeper into a particular niche/fetish.

You might start with a mild OTK spanking, and by story ten you'll be covering knife play in chains and 'forbidden' fantasies. So it's good to vary and change themes or approaches. For me, as a strictly amateur author, what I write mirrors my own sexual interests and fantasies, so that drives the changes to large extent. But I still try to be reasonable and not write the same story more than a couple of times. Once I write "my ultimate tale of whatever," be it big tits sex or bisexual femdom humiliation, I leave it at that on ES, even if my private fantasies involve the same theme in various iterations.

ES: I think that's a fairly common approach - although I must admit, I'm still aspiring towards the ultimate blowjob story. One where the reader not only sees, feels and tastes everything I do, but actually gets the mouthful at the end, lol.

CM: Oh, that WOULD be fun. Though I wonder how your, presumably mostly male, readers would react to that...

I have noticed that your work has also changed. Even though you are still faithful to all matters oral, the treatments you give your subject matter seem to differ now. From an Orwell fanfic pastiche to boy on boy stories, there is maybe more to your pieces now. How do you see your evolution as a smut writer? Is it change of style, themes, approach? And what prompts those changes?

ES: I think for the same reason. You cannot keep writing the same story, or even the same type of story. As a writer, I think I'd say I've opened up to my own influences more... films I love, books I love.... The Orwell story was one I've had on my mind for a while; it just took me a long time to actually get up the nerve to write a filthy tribute to one of my all-time favorite authors. It still feels a little disrespectful, but I think Orwell would at least crack a smile....

I think it's safe to say that the majority of your stories fall in the Femdom category. Is this an accurate reflection of your own personality?

CM: It is indeed. There is a whole story of its own there; hey, maybe even a novel. Maybe even a Proper Novel! The one everybody has in them supposedly.

But the part ES readers might find interesting is that my adventure with Femdom, and my overall immersion in kink actually started with ES and one of my earlier bi stories.

A reader contacted me, a rather intense, sexually charged dialogue began, and fairly soon a pretty clear D/s dynamic developed. I enjoyed that - I enjoyed that A LOT - and, in the process, I not only found myself with a muse who inspired many of my stories over the next few months, but a wholesale re-evaluation of my sexual identity. I was handed the keys to the bdsm chest of delights and I have not stopped digging in it ever since.

When I look at my earlier stories, although very few of them have an obviously kinky or a D/s theme, they almost all have strong, fairly sexually dominant female characters; and the MM ones have such a D/s streak, too.

ES: And now?

CM: Now, it has gone well beyond the story writing. Although I am yet to consciously take it into the Real Life, it has given me a hindsight into my sexual history, a kind of framework for a lot of my ''sexual weirdness',' and many early experiences, which suddenly started to make sense.

Do you know that feeling? When various pieces fall into place and a picture emerges and you can't believe you have not seen it before? A person, or a persona, even an alter ego maybe, and you say ''Fuck, this is actually me. It has been me all along"?

ES: Oh, I know exactly what you mean, although I'd say my "alter-ego" hatched as I was writing my novel "Miss America" - which I've never been able to publish here, because it contains way too many of the things we're not allowed to write about. But basically it's about a girl who, having gone through life believing she was more-or-less vanilla, and more or less accepting the societal insistence that her love of blowjobs was a fairly submissive trait, realizes she's actually a lot more dominant than that. There's a lot more to it than that, but ultimately that's how I read it.

CM: I MUST read that then!

Personally I have always been amazed how oral sex is consistently portrayed as a submissive act. I think it's hard to think of being in a more powerful position in relation to a man than having his dick between your teeth... and obviously the potential for teasing is also magnificent. I know that penetration is seen as a dominant, possessive act; in fact, some femdom couples go as far as ''his cock will never enter her mouth or vagina again,'' which is something that definitely doesn't rock my boat. But the perception of cock sucking as a submissive thing goes beyond that, and I could never understand that myself.

ES: I think it's because.... when you're younger, it's usually the guy who initiates it the first few times. Even though I wanted to take the lead, there was always that little voice in the back of my head that insisted that "nice girls don't," so you're waiting for him to ask, or make the first move, because that way, you're just doing what he asked. Later, once you've dated a while, it's fine to just get on with it, but again, it's because "he started it." So in that respect, there is a degree of submission, even though - as you said - it's actually a very dominant act.

CM: Hmm. I never had qualms about grabbing and getting down to it actually... even though I was told ''you don't have to do this'' on occasion, as if it was some kind of favour rather than something I wanted. I also think what got in the way of my self-awareness earlier was likely the typical image of a Dominatrix, either a real life pro-Domme or a porn fantasy (and one is fed by the other, obviously, as the pros would reenact porn fantasies according to their customers desires).

Anyway, once located I delighted in my toppy/sadistic streak, and I will always owe the BlokeFormerlyKnownAsToy (incidentally, he writes here every so often too ;) for unlocking that door for me. And once I looked back, I saw it everywhere. I am now at the stage where I really, really want to take it into real flesh and blood world. I am also scared shitless by the prospect, of course. Being involved in a volatile but still just-about-barely-functional vanilla (VERY vanilla) life, with all the associated trappings, makes it complicated to say the least.

ES: So what do you do?

CM: I indulge in a lot of remote play, and occasionally it does go beyond just casual sexy games. The faithful fans will probably see a change of themes, formats and characters that appear in my pieces posted here, and that reflects my changing playmates and obsessions.

The more recent 'Stories for J' are quite different from the 'Stories for N' from a year or so ago. The best of my stories are shared fantasies, or rather fantasies and narratives, written for particular people or with particular people in mind.

I also have a little exhibitionist streak, and I find it very thrilling that such personal pieces seem to work, and appeal to other readers.

Which brings me neatly to a question. Do you have a muse, or muses? I am not really asking whether you write from life or fantasy, though that's interesting too, but more, have you ever continuously written for a particular person? With an agenda that went beyond just providing personalized wank fodder, or getting loosely inspired for a story? And did you find that it affected your work in a particular way?

ES: I've never really had a muse as such; I guess when I was first writing, it was sort of therapy/revenge for a rather nasty break-up, saying to my ex (who was a regular here), "this is what you're missing, asshole." So I guess you could call him an inspiration. But I tend to react more to... strangers, people I see on the bus, maybe; things I read, movies.... Or situations, wondering what might have occurred if this had happened, instead of that. "First Time" stories fascinate me for that reason, and I've noticed you enjoy them as well.

CM: Yes, I noticed that about your stuff! It's only First Times that are interesting, aren't they? I mean, it's ALWAYS a first time. I wrote a story once that which got removed because of not enough ratings, it was a ''romantic one'' really, though not posted in that category, but in general FM one-on-one. Allow me to quote myself shamelessly:

"It's impossible to remember every time we have fucked, because it must have been hundreds - maybe thousands - of times that we touched like that, that we entered each other like that, but there is still - there always is - that tiny moment of excitement, of the thrill, of what is it going to be like? without which there is no desire, just a bodily contortion or a painful chore."

So every story of mine is a story of a first time in some sense - otherwise what's the point? I am not interested in sex as a hygienic activity comparable to brushing teeth, OK, I will do it, of course, because teeth need brushing, but I will certainly not write about it.

It's boring if there is no door to open, no bridge to cross, no wall to bring down, no fear and no elation. I suppose I am a sensation seeker who thrives on intensity and novelty, more emotional/intellectual even if not physical adventure now I am older, so the appeal of ''first times'' is a default for me. Plus, even a stroke story needs a bit of a plot, in the sense of emotional dynamic and suspense, and there is no better way to generate that suspense that a first time experience of something.

ES: So have you based any of your stories on your "real" First Times?

CM: That's not something I really thought about much... but oddly enough, there's not THAT much in relation to real life. I wrote one story, called The Sweetest Pain, which starts with entirely real event, which was the first time I consciously hurt somebody in sexual context without even ever having sex with them. But the story doesn't focus on the first-timeness of the experience. And the same with My Lover, My Beloved and His Girlfriend. It refers my first ever FF RL experience, but it doesn't focus on the first-time nature. So you just made me realize that, although I write about first times and I write about my experiences, I don't write about my own first

ES: You mentioned your first FF experience; I also really enjoy the way you handle MM action - all the more so because, in my own experience, readers either really LOVE or really HATE it. And they vote accordingly. What is the fascination for you?

CM: Oh god. Now you got me started. Years before the whole kink bomb exploded in my head, I had been always aware of my own fascination - a fetish really - for bisexual or gay male sex. I have no idea how or why it started. I think I was always attracted to somewhat tortuously conflicted or socially unacceptable desires, but it's not just that.

Androgyny always interested me, both psychologically and physically, maybe because it's something I could never physically pull off, what with tits and ass and so called womanly curves. Not that I mind, but we do desire what we are not, no? Plus, I have always liked pretty men and fairly masculine women.

Ultimately I just find the idea of a MMF threesome, and even just two guys having sex pretty hot. I watch gay porn occasionally and probably more than vanilla hetero porn, though I am pretty picky and generally watch very little. I think what appeals to me most about gay porn is - no smirks, OK - the faces. You rarely get male orgasm faces in FM porn, obviously because it's targeted at male audience.

But I was very wary of posting my first MM story narrated from a male PoV.

I did quite a bit of research for it, to avoid getting things completely wrong physiologically, but the feedback I got was absolutely fantastic and positive. Basically, quite a few bi guys told me I got it right, which was extremely gratifying. And that first bi male-PoV piece was one of my most commented on stories. I am not sure if I got any ''hate'' reactions.

I don't really recall any low votes to any of my bi stories, and I am sure I didn't get any negative comments. I didn't have that many ''regular'' fans before that, and I think many became fans after my bi or FF pieces, so maybe I didn't have a huge male vanilla/straight readership that got pissed off or turned off by my homoerotic stories.

My most faithful readers, and my best commenters... some of whom graduated to regular(ish) email correspondents... are in fact those who read my bi femdom narratives. Not many, but quality. I do love you, guys *waves to faithful fans*.

The worse I had was something along the lines of "well written, but didn't turn me on" or "not my kind of thing". But as you seem to have more of variable feedback, I'd love to hear of your experiences of ''hate'' type reactions to MM themes! I have a theory here: I think a lot of your readers like to think themselves liberated and sexually adventurous (cue: blowjobs) and when you throw something that makes them question their range, they get annoyed. Am I onto something or completely off the mark?

ES: Strangely, the most negative remarks came from people I'd never heard from before. There again, so did some of the most positive comments. I think a lot of guys are "interested" in MM... at least in a "I'd like to try it once," way. Not all of them - some are outraged that such a thing could even exist. But even with the ones who are interested, they have a scenario mapped out in their minds, a "if it has to happen, this is how I'd like it." So, a story that doesn't follow that scenario is almost inevitably going to hit the wrong buttons.

My "favorite" response, though, was one of the "well-written, but..." ones, which then pulled me up for not having described the act in minute detail. So, he didn't like it, but he still wanted to know exactly how it was done....

CM: Which completely misses the point! I think, anyway. It's feelings, not just actions, that matter. If I want to see precise position of the limbs, I will watch a video.

Of course, the other beauty of being a niche author is that I hardly get any votes, and almost none of them are negative. Rarely anything below 8 in the crooked ES scale, and almost never below 7. But I do still get some strange responses. The most annoying people are the ones who look at the pic and try to chat me up in a crude, often illiterate way. I usually just ask them whether they read my stories, tell them what I would do to them in very sexy terms, and they go away.

ES: I have to admit, I'm not 100% certain that those people are actually serious. Do they really believe a woman is going to respond positively to the things they write? Or is a passive-aggressive thing... a way of putting her down, while appearing "interested"?

CM: Thankfully, I get relatively little of that stuff, either here or on social media, from Twitter to collarme, which has probably something to do with my awesomely Dommey sexual vibe, scarily brilliant brains, and advanced age. But I know that younger, prettier and vanilla or submissive women get a lot of comments that cross the border to harassment.

I do get an occasional weird message, not so much here though. How do YOU deal with haters or inappropriate creepery?

ES: I just ignore them. And you're right, ES readers are a lot less likely to indulge in that kind of behavior. Facebook used to attract a lot.... Fetlife still does. But the worst are a couple of tube sites I use, where every time I log on (purely for research, you understand), there'll be a dozen guys who think it's the height of gentlemanly wit to ask if I want to "swallow their load."

You've been writing here since 2006, although a lot of your early stories are no longer with us. Tell us about your early experiences writing erotica... we all have our own reasons for writing our first stories, what were yours?

CM: My first story for ES, which was my first posted anywhere, was written to get access to picture and video galleries! It was a long time ago! But after that I was hooked. My reasons changed with time. Originally I wrote my personal fantasies. I am fussy about my smut, so I started to write my own, basically.

Later on, the stories became a vehicle for what I somewhat presumptuously called a ''narrative affair'' with my then-muse. A way to get into his mind, to understand how it worked.

The more recent ones... are more of a psychodrama, really. A shared, twisted fantasy. The readers here get to see one side of it, but but it's part of a very intense, if long-distance, sexual obsession. Ha. That should get some looks into my latest.

ES: And the old stories that have since departed?

CM: Mostly, they went because they weren't written very well. Copy editing was non-existent, the language was clumsy and the fantasies were much less fleshed out. I had vague ideas of rewriting/reposting, but never got round to it, simply because my interests changed. I used some sections of writing, plot lines or scenes in later pieces, actually.

I know that you write about sex, not just sexy stories; you also edited some anthologies, no? Do you find that you approach your more ''commercial'' texts differently than the ones you do purely for fun? Or is the line so blurry as to be nonexistent?

ES: There's no line at all. In fact, several stories that I've published in anthologies appeared here first. They're all written for fun - which is actually the first piece of advice I always offer anyone who asks me how to go about writing a story, or anything else for that matter. Write it for yourself, and your own entertainment first. Readers can tell if you're not enjoying yourself - and it's not pleasant!

CM: For quite a while now I have been really writing primarily for the audience of about two at any given time (that is including myself), and the fact that those stories seem to also have a wider, if niche, appeal never ceases to amaze me.

But I do take the wider audience into account to some extent. Not so much in the themes I use, but more in the editing - for example how I chop up the multi-part stories.

As an example, I did have a longer story which turned from MFM to MMF scenes and I did cut it into two parts to separate the "normal" from the "dodgy" section. And I did tweak a couple of femdommey texts which went quite far into the realm of feminisation/crossdressing, to make it just a little less niche.

I also include descriptions of how my female characters look, almost entirely for the audience! I know guys like that kind of thing, so I do relent here, but it bores me like fuck to write them and read them. I used to make more concessions to the demands of the stroke-story genre, but ultimately, I write what and how I want.

If I wanted to dramatically increase my fan count and the number of ratings, I would start writing FM slut-wife stories or stuff like that. I have nothing against those, but considering it's a labour of lust, pure and simple, I won't write stuff that doesn't turn me on much.

But if somebody eer commissioned a story whose premise left me lukewarm, it would be an interesting challenge to write it hot enough regardless. I wonder if it would work, actually.

As a proper professional smut writer, do you yourself need to get aroused by an idea to write it up? Or can you write a hot story to order, even on a subject that isn't quite your cup (oh, OK, thimble) of cum? And would you write one that featured a fetish that not only leaves you cold but actually squicks you out? If yes, would you charge more for such and by what multiplier?

ES: It depends, and not so much on the money, but whether I can find any loophole that can steer it towards something that interests me. Which I usually can.

I mentioned my novel "Miss America" earlier... I don't think there was much in the way of basic kinks that didn't get in there, and there were a few scenes that really did gross me out. A bukake session with a bunch of misshapen dwarves was one of them. Being encased in plastic and peed on was another. But it was interesting, because never having written about those things before, I wanted to see (a) if I could, and (b) how I'd respond. And I was pleased with the answers to both.

Now, flipping from things you could never write, to things that you are dying to write... one of my favorite of all your stories is "Dylan's Lunch." There's a sense of mad joy about it that always makes me laugh. Maybe because I could only dream of having tits like that, haha. Tell us more about that story... did it come from a personal experience/fantasy?

CM: Ah, thank you!! I love the "mad joy" label, and I think it really fits that story. It was my first ever story written from a male PoV, and I was terrified when I posted it. It also has quite a bit of subtle power dynamic inherent in the older woman - young lad scenario. It is still one of my favorites, and yes, it's a very personal fantasy (but they all are, really) that dates to the period in my life when I was really, really, really, REALLY breast fixated. It also coincided with my very bi-curious period, so I had a major crush on Chloe Vevrier (do look her up for the ultimate big-tits fix) and I did a lot of cyber with guys and women who liked big breasts.

But no, I never picked up a hunky but intelligent boy young enough to be technically my son in a sandwich bar in an English county town...

ES: Do you have a "Holy Grail" in writing... a mood or a sensation you are trying to capture that forever remains just out of reach? And what would you do if you ever actually reached it?

CM: Ha. What a lovely question. I think what I am most interested in is desire. To capture the essence of desire, and its various manifestations. We are nothing without desire. Desire, not just sexual desire, but that's the kind we are talking about here, and perhaps the most interesting one, is for me the essence of being alive. Obviously we have needs -- like thirst or hunger or sleep -- but these are physiologically necessary for survival.

Lust is biologically wired in, but there is so much more to it. Some people long to be without lust. Others thrive on that ache. I am definitely among the latter. Once we stop wanting, we are dead. Or in nirvana, but that never held that much appeal for me. Maybe I have not suffered enough... And to narrow it down, I am particularly interested in transgressive desires. Ones that go against the current norm, script, ones that are at least a little subversive, although I wouldn't go as far as seeing sexual expression as a political statement. Many totalitarian bodies, from the Christian Church to governments, tried to control sexual life of the people so there might be something here, what do you think?

ES: Oh, without doubt. The whole "sex is sin" thing was a control element, pure and simple, and it lives on in the bulk of the obscenity laws, past and present. It's unbelievable to me that there were ever laws anywhere that banned oral and anal sex, because what business is it of anyone?

Yet there are still some states today, here in the US, where those things are illegal. And why? To keep people in such a state of constant moral repression that they'll accept almost any other law that's thrown at them. Thankfully that's changing now... or it's being changed, although it's slow. But it's not so long ago that even this website would have been illegal, let alone this conversation. I'm sorry, though... you were saying?

CM: No, that's all interesting for me. I am a little torn here because on one hand I object to the state control of what consenting adults do; on the other, I think that the element of taboo and forbidden, in the social or emotional if not legal sense, is quite hot. And as a writer, I find that such transgressive desires create an interesting conflict for plot developments, and they do yield themselves easily to a typical ''first time'' treatment, which we were talking about earlier.

There is more to that, though. In bdsm relationships, there is a lot pushing of the limits, even something that approaches breaking/remoulding your partner to your liking, if you play as the dominant, and those changes, that pulling down of walls and allowing hidden things to emerge and coalesce, these are all fascinating dynamics to observe, engage in and write about.

I doubt that I would ever reach the ultimate expression of any of the above. But when I get to what I consider my ''ultimate treatment'' of a particular theme, I just move on, trying to avoid rewriting the same piece over and over again.

Having answered so extensively myself, I am going to take an easy way out and just ask you to tell me -- and the readers -- what your goal or goals are. What would be your ideal, archetypal piece of Naughty Miranda smut? The real Plato's-cave thing, of which the actual texts are just pale shadows?

ES: Easy. I want to shatter the fourth wall, and pull the reader physically into the story. All the way. To feel everything, to taste everything. Virtual Reality without the virtual nonsense. But failing that... and I fear I am destined to fail that... I always get a real sense of "YES!!!" when someone, usually a woman, writes, and tells me one of my stories changed her attitudes towards.

It's usually blowjobs, or swallowing, or something in that area. But it doesn't have to be; for instance, someone wrote to me after reading "The Girl in the Doorway" and said it actually made them see the homeless in a different light; not just as something you step around when you're walking down the street, but as real people with real feelings and dreams. And I can't tell you how happy that made me feel.

So I guess, my answer is - I want to get people going, and I would like to get them thinking, as well. Which brings us to my final question, which is - when you're reading a story, what gets you going?

CM: I have no idea, or rather, I can show you but not quite tell you. Just like a good story should. OK, getting there. This is probably the most important thing, not just for erotica, but any fiction. No elaborate exposition, not in the sense of a buildup; buildup is good, but no retelling of a back story. No info dumps please. SHOW me what they do, tell me what they think and experience at the moment, and what memories and feelings it might invoke and if you do it well, I will get the connection without the need to have it pointed out.

Good editing and ruthless trimming.

I have been writing to set word counts (not smut, alas) more recently, and I think that made me more disciplined in writing erotica too. I personally don't like too much of a visual description. All the clothes and all the body parts described in detail just bore the fuck out of me. And if these descriptions are incongruent, well, it's just funny and spoils the mood.

ES: Ah, the svelte nymphette wearing a 38D bra.

CM: Exactly! I can assure you that very few women wearing 38 band size are anywhere near svelte. And I will not even address the enthusiasm with which male writers give the precise inch-age for cocks; I have never measured a single cock in my life, and apart from the fact that I KNOW seven inches is slightly above average and nine is pretty big, this info tells me nothing at all apart from the fact that the author is a bit obsessive on that score.

Some technical realism is good, but I like stories that convey the emotional state of the characters, not just tell me what they did. I don't mean "Oh, he was overcome with love for her", that is a definite turn off; I mean all the lovely, horny, body-and-mind-spanning feelings to do with desire - I think I've mentioned desire before? And don't tell me just that he or she was horny or aroused. I figured that out already.

Tell me how hard his cock was, how her pussy got wet and tense and hot, how her nipples felt against her shirt as they got harder; but tell me also how the want changed into need, how the control was lost and gained.

Then add all the interesting extras for some plot dynamic: apprehension, elation, fear, insecurity, shame, being unsure what comes next, suspense and anticipation, vulnerability, trust, the power and the glory. OK, getting a bit over the top here. But you get the point.

And, naturally, now I'd like to know hear your idea of what makes for a good erotic story!

ES: To be honest, I think you covered all the bases there!

Thanks to CatrionaM for taking part in this - please go read her stories, and if she's not already one of your favorite authors, then click the link on her profile and she will be. And look out for another conversation soon!