Genre:
Gothic Horror; Paranormal Romance; Erotic Fiction; Fantasy; LGBT
Publisher:
Cleis Press
Inspired by
Oscar Wilde’s classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mitzi Szereto’s The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray
continues where Wilde left off with the Faustian tale of a man of eternal youth
and great physical beauty who lives a life of corruption, decadence and
hedonism. Leaving behind London Marrakesh South America . In his pursuit of sensation and
carnal thrills, Dorian’s desires turn increasingly extreme as he leaves behind
yet more devastation and death. He ultimately settles in present-day New Orleans
Excerpt:
Dorian Gray
awakens as if from the grave. A great weight presses down on him from above,
but when he looks up to determine the cause, realizes it’s his head, which
feels so heavy upon the stem of his neck that he expects it to tumble off and
land on the crumpled bedding beneath him. Even the air itself is heavy, as if
he were trying to breathe through cotton wool.
He blinks
several times to clear his vision, the effort of moving his lids far too
strenuous an endeavor to undertake without discomfort; the upper lids feel as
if cast-iron window weights have been attached to them. The bluish haze that
blurs the objects in the lavishly appointed bedroom make him wonder if he has
somehow developed shortsightedness as his puffy and burning eyes struggle to
focus and make sense of his surroundings. He hears the sound of breaths being
drawn in and then released in a steady rhythm that might have been soothing if
not for his disorientation. Are they his or someone else’s?
Red velvet
draperies cover the tall windows and they move sluggishly in the breeze as if
they too, are affected by this overwhelming sense of heaviness that afflicts
him. They remind Dorian of curtains in a theater and he expects them to swing
open, revealing players on a stage. Instead they reveal irregular chinks of
yellow light, which insinuate themselves inside the room, informing him that
it’s morning.
The clarity
of his vision slowly returns, bringing with it more detail. Embroidered silk
cushions lie scattered across the wooden floorboards, as do overturned glasses
and random bits of gray ash. The bed upon which he finds himself appears to be
a tangled heap of arms and legs, the more slender among them of female origin.
They crisscross each other in a haphazard pattern. Arms as white as the first
winter snow. Arms as black as polished ebony. Some look as if they belong to
the same body, though Dorian knows this to be physically impossible. Lying amid
the jumble he detects the gentle curve of a woman’s breast and, unless he’s
mistaken, the graceless wedge of a man’s foot.
That Dorian
is inside a bedchamber becomes obvious to him. It might be his, though he can’t
be certain. He seems to recollect a small man with a pencil-thin moustache and
a worn yellow tape around his neck measuring the window frames with extravagant
meticulousness, then afterward producing several swatches of fabric, one of
which was red velvet. The memory’s returning to him in more clarity now.
Monsieur Larouche, the curtain maker. His men finished hanging the red velvet
draperies a few weeks ago.
As for the
hours that have just gone past, they continue to remain a confused jumble of
images in Dorian’s mind, though the fragrant after-scents of smoked opium and
female pleasure tease at the edges of his memory like a tickling finger,
gradually bringing him back to consciousness.
About the Author:
Mitzi Szereto is an author and anthology editor of multi-genre fiction
and non-fiction, has her own blog “Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Weblog”,
and is the creator/presenter of the Web TV channel “Mitzi TV”, which covers
“quirky” London UK Europe , teaching them
from the Cheltenham Festival of Literature to the Greek islands as well as lecturing
in creative writing at several British universities. She’s been featured
internationally in print media and on radio and television. Her anthology Erotic Travel Tales 2 is the first
anthology of erotica to feature a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Author Links:
The Wilde
Passions of Dorian Gray website: http://mitziszereto.com/wildepassionsofdoriangray/
Mitzi
Szereto website: http://mitziszereto.com
Mitzi
Szereto on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mitziszereto
Mitzi
Szereto Facebook fan page: https://www.facebook.com/mitziszereto.fanpage
Mitzi TV: http://mitziszereto.com/tv
Errant Ramblings: Mitzi
Szereto’s Weblog: http://mitziszereto.com/blog
Mitzi Szereto Google+ Fan
Page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/105002950509883985630/+Mitziszereto/posts
Mitzi Szereto
on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/72445.Mitzi_Szereto
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