Why do fools...

It's no April Fool! Science Fiction Romance Station is having a blog hop starting today and lasting all month, to highlight our authors' characters'  goofiest moments when it comes to love. And you know what?

We're giving out prizes! Good ones!

But I'm not telling you about them until the end.

I fretted over which scene to use for this installment, and decided on one from Applesauce and Moonbeams, because it was the only one I could think of that didn't contain many spoilers. What you need to know before reading this: Our hero, David, is a telepathic psychiatrist from Las Vegas who specializes in teaching people to fit into the uncomfortable niches their futuristic society requires of them. Now his mind has been blasted into the head of one very pampered kitty cat, Jonathan, who lives on the moon. So David is now a moon cat. His owner's niece, Pippin, is an avant-garde artist who has been celibate for far longer than she has wanted. No, there's no bestiality. Sheesh! Pip invites a fellow artist, Sevan, to her studio one day. David's been subconsciously trying to communicate his situation to Pippin, enough so the name "David" comes to her mind. Oh, and the "snake bites" are decorative cosmetic patches that prevent skin wrinkles. The Nineties, Teens, etc. numbers indicate different body types. Let's join the action:

It was all too chummy for David. He’d trotted in after them, weaving his way between Sevan’s feet until the man had to stop to let Jonathan lead the way. Instead, David stopped as well, even sat to lick his shoulder, until Sevan forged ahead. Then it was back to the weaving.

“Davi— I mean, Jonathan, stop that.”

“Nice cat. And this is a great space,” Sevan said after an awkward pause. “Do you mind—?” He gestured at a table next to the modeling stage and she began to clear her equipment off it.

“Part of it was a farewell gift from the folks on Earth,” she told him.

That got them talking about their families back home. Sevan pulled materials out of his bag: a lazy susan with two blocks of gray Insta-Klay, a pack of armature wire, and sculpture tools whose edges looked part kindergarten and part lethal.

David didn’t like this guy. He didn’t like the way he moved: like a clumsy, well, human. And he smelled funny. David half-listened to Pip’s story, though it should have fascinated him through enlightenment gained. Why, when Pip’s family had insisted she study marketing at university, she had maneuvered them into a deal guaranteeing her a double major that included fine art. If that didn’t reveal the soul of a true businesswoman, what did?

But Sevan didn’t understand. He was interested in other things besides saving Pip’s soul and forming her into a useful and content member of society. At the least he should reiterate what she said and restate it so that she knew he was hearing what she had to say. He needed to establish emotional feedback if he was here for what David thought he was here for.

And yet Pip seemed like she was responding to him. Worse, she smelled like a huntress.

David hated Sevan’s holographic snake bites. They were too flashy and bespoke a huge ego. Well, Nineties as a rule had ego problems, didn’t they? The opposite of Teens, Nineties were completely sure of themselves because of their dominating size and often adopted flashy accouterments to finalize the business of attracting mates.

Snake bites should be muted so you could focus on someone’s features. Pip, of course, went all the way with hers. They were skin-colored. When she smiled, you saw the smile and not the flash of silver or magenta attached to the flesh.

David blinked at her. On her it worked. Rather endearing, actually. The snakebites on that low-make face were a way of telling the world that she was not a woman to fake her way through life.

The two humans wrestled a tapestried chaise from one of the front rooms up onto the low stage. It was purple with bright daisies woven into the fabric. As Sevan rotated the stage, Pip took a seat. David jumped up onto Pip’s lap and nudged her so she’d scratch his chin. He leaned into the caress. Sevan set up lights whose brightness Pip directed by vocal control.

“Good enough,” they decided together. Sevan took a position by his Klay.

Pip set David down on the main floor and stood up. Then she slowly dropped her robe. Underneath it she was naked.

“How do you want me?” she asked.

“No, no, no!” David yowled.

Sevan took a step back from David. “Does he bite?”

Pippin frowned at David and then turned a warm smile to Sevan. “He’s just angry because I stopped petting him.”

David stormed to himself as he paced back and forth. This was not going right!

Pip settled upon the chaise like the Queen of Sheba, all temptation and womanliness and control.

Sevan made some suggestions as to pose and gesture and Pip complied, snuggling back into the cushions to get comfortable. Sevan moved his primary light and stepped back, then—

Don’t TOUCH her! David wanted to scream. He trembled where he stood as Sevan arranged Pip’s arm so it haloed her head, thrown back against the line of the couch.

No! Pip was David’s to use. She was going to learn from him when he got his body back.

He was going to shape her, not this man.

She shifted slightly and Sevan said, “That’s great. Right there.” He walked around her, shooting photos from different angles. Sevan returned to his worktable and quickly began to construct an armature from his wire. When he applied bits of clay to it and the form grew to that of a human woman, David seethed.

Through the blackness of his rage he wondered if he could force Sevan out of his body and jump into it himself.

“Shall I talk to myself to keep awake, then?” Pip asked.

“Sorry.”

David didn’t like the play in her voice. She was a lonely woman. A woman who should be well-kept. This man was not a good match for her; anyone could see that.

David growled low.

After a long while of fiddling with the clay, Sevan announced, “Break.”

“Thank God.” Pippin reached for her robe and wrapped it around herself to check the work in progress. Sevan stood back from it, scowling at the figure.

“Ah, so sculptors feel it too,” she murmured to him with a sly smile. She moved near him and stroked his arm. When she spoke, her breath must tickle his ear. “It’s a very strong start. You have real talent. Can I get you a drink? Or would you like a... longer break?”

At that he turned to her. His head cocked slightly to the left as he regarded her now robed, as if he hadn’t been studying every inch of her naked. His gaze darkened from angst to arousal.

“I wouldn’t mind a chance to stretch,” he said.

Pip wrapped her arms around his so-talented Seventy arm. “I know a great place to do that,” she whispered in his ear.

David sank his claws right into Sevan’s Seventies calf.

Sevan let out a very feminine shriek. Pippin jumped back until she saw what had happened.

“Da— Jonathan! Sevan, are you hurt? Jonathan—bad cat! No! Bad cat!”

David stood up on his hind feet and used Sevan’s leg as a scratching post.

“Get it off me! OFF ME!!”

“Jonathan! No! No, get down! Sevan, he’s not doing it in spite. It’s just a cat thing. He thinks you’re a tree or something. Jonathan!”

David easily avoided Pippin’s swipes as she simultaneously attempted to soothe her would-be lover and capture David. He had to release, but he circled around, looking for another opening.

Sevan sank to the chaise and held his lower leg, howling at the ceiling.

Pip swung David up to her chest. She reached for Sevan’s shoulder as he bent to cup his wound. Blood dripped from several deep scratches.

“Is it bad?” Pippin asked. “He’s never done anything like this before. Nothing at all.” She hovered over him. “Should I call 911? Can I get you a pain patch? Bad cat!”

Sevan glared at David. “That cat is insane!”

David hissed at him, making sure his spittle found Sevan’s eyes.

Pip fought the growling, spitting animal in her arms. “Bad Jonathan!” She ran to the french doors and tossed the cat through them, snapping them shut before he could get back inside. David threw himself against the doors, hard enough so they rattled.

----

Oh dear, David was a baaad cat. If you like that, you can click on the book cover at the upper right to find a page that gives more info and places/formats you can buy it.

And right above that is a place to sign up for my very infrequent newsletter. If you do, you'll get a confirmation letter that has a secret code for you to get a FREE e-version of Touch of Danger, vol. 1 of the superhero romance series "Three Worlds."

Did someone say "Contest"? Okay, here's the info! SFR Station is offering three prizes: Grand Prize: $75 gift card (your choice of iBooks, Nook, Kindle, or All Romance) PLUS 16 ebooks. 2nd prize: $25 gift card and 12 ebooks! 3rd prize: $25 and 8 ebooks! Let's see… Oh, the Internet and all the codes… Here's where you enter: a Rafflecopter giveaway They say you only have to enter on one blog to be entered in the big contest.

Did I say "all"? Lots of people are giving little April Fools excerpts. You can sample from a wide variety, and I think this will give you a listing of links for everyone: 

If that didn't work, try going here instead, a simple little link. THE CONTEST RUNS ALL MONTH, so there's plenty of time to try out everyone's sites.

I think clicking on the button and picture at the top of this blog will also send you in the right direction, at least if I'm reading the HTML correctly.

AND WHAT THE HECK…
I'll give away a free ebook of your choice of my titles to TWO lucky people! All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog.

Hope you have a very funny and entertaining April Fool's Day! Me, I'll go back to my rocking chair and think lovely luddite thoughts.

--Carol Strick

A Little March Tease!

I recently joined the Scifi Romance Group on Facebook (they spell "Sci Fi" differently than I do) and today is a day to advertise our books via blog posts. So here I present a tease of Applesauce and Moonbeams, which isn't Sci Fi Romance but rather Sci Fi with Romantic Elements. Yes, there's a difference. Ah, categorization!

Let's set the stage: Our Hero has been in a battle that ended on the Lunar Express, a shuttle going from Earth to Luna. Unfortunately (actually fortunately, or I'd have no plot), he lost that battle and has collapsed into one of the passenger sleep pods. I'll let Pippin take it from here...

---

How odd. Pippin had expected to wake up brimming with unbounded zest, free from the crushing gravity that had been Earth for the past six weeks. She should be home: back on Luna.

This trip had left the rest of her life hanging and her nerves shattered. They had already been stretched thin as a plastic sheet. During the past six weeks that plastic had been pulled and distorted, finally snapping into shreds by a lack of time and more gravity than a human body was ever meant to bear.

What she needed was a long vacation. What she faced was the most important deadline of her life.

Now at last she could pick up where she’d left and get on with everything. She’d have to do so at a dead run; her schedule was squeezed unbearably tight. Instead, she found she literally couldn’t move. Was some fear of failure immobilizing her? Or worse: artist’s block?

I should have refused to go to Earth, she reminded herself as she put up faint struggle to open her eyes. She thought she’d left Earth behind four years ago. But poor Jonathan. He couldn’t have lasted much longer without Terran help. And of course, poor old Aunt Evie anxiously waited for him at home.

Evie certainly couldn’t have survived the trip, so Pippin had put her dream on hold for six weeks. Forty-two irreplaceable days. She’d accompanied Jonathan throughout his ordeal, and had now brought him back home. She hoped he appreciated her sacrifice. She knew Aunt Evie didn’t.

Her time was her own again, but time now ran oddly. It was dark. Oh yeah, she had her eyes closed, but there didn’t seem to be any light on the other side of her lids. Open, open, open, her mind commanded, but her mistreated body groaned, Five more minutes.

She still felt heavy, though maybe half or a third as bad as the horror Mama Terra had been. Not only heavy but a tad claustrophobic. She squeegeed the sleep-slime in her mouth with her teeth, trying to taste what the problem was as her senses slowly awoke. Ew, got some hair in her mouth. She spat it out.

It was really quiet in here. Funny odor; guess that was the plastic sleep suit they made her wear, with its plumbing and sensors and everything. It really smelled icky. More than ripe; kind of rotten, like when they brought in a big batch of manure from the Luna C waste facility to receive its final rounds of sterilization. That couldn’t be her, could it? Ew, ew. Never!

She must be still in the sleep pod. Cocooned to withstand the hard acceleration that powered the Express, it fed her enough drugs to keep her unaware of the day-and-a-half ride. The faint sounds she made as she squirmed echoed back to her, reminding her of how tiny it was.

People weren’t supposed to wake up in their pods, were they? Had something catastrophic happened? She started throwing off the drug effects at that thought. Was there something wrong with the ship, that the sleepers had been awakened prematurely so they could deal manually with the emergency—or at least say their final prayers?

Meteoroid collision? Crew decompression? Was no one left at the controls?

Maybe some glitch had cut off her nutrients or, God help her, her air, and some keen animal instinct had snapped herself alert so she could jump up and—

Not bloody likely, with this weight pinning her down.

Funny, it didn’t extend to her arms or hands. Her left foot also seemed to be free of it. Still, it was... well, something. An object of some kind, a smushing load, a—

“Wooo-AAAAHHH!” she shrieked. “Dead body! Dead body!”

She scrabbled her free fingers, searching for some kind of help button to alert the staff. There must be a help button. And a staff that was awake. Please, God, a— “HAAAAAALLP!” She ended it in a pure, unadulterated screech guaranteed to penetrate six inches of solid steel if need be.

Suddenly it occurred to her that her screams might use up all available oxygen.

Oxygen or zombie initiation? “YAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! EEEEEEEEE!”

Excited voices penetrated from the other side of the pod. She shrieked as loudly as she could: “Dead! BODIEEE! Lemme out! Lemme OUUUUT!!!”

For the first time in her life, Pippin Applegate fainted.

---

Hope you liked that! You can find out more about this book here, including buy links. (It's $3.99 for e-book.) (And darn it, even though it looked perfect the other week, I see I have to nudge the type on that webpage just a tad once again. It never ends, does it? Siiigh.) And remember, if you sign up for my VERY infrequent newsletter at the top right side of this blog, you will get a FREE e-copy of Touch of Danger, vol. 1 in the "Three Worlds" series!