1000 Words Banner

Pratt, the Adventurer

You know my name, and you’ve heard my legend many many times. I won’t apologize for my fame or the long shadow I’ve cast over lesser adventurers. Why should I?

I am Pratt.

You’ve heard of my recent rescue of the Lady of Lilacs from the clutches of a sorcerer? Well, the storytellers have completely ruined it in the telling. It began on the coast of Saphris…Are you writing this down? I certainly hope so, there’s nothing so insufferable as having to repeat myself. Continue reading “Pratt, the Adventurer” »

A Month of Fuck: Or, How April Fell Apart

So if you keep up with this site you know that I had a lot of big promises for April. There was a mini-series, a multi-chapter update for Leaving the League, new short fiction every monday and more. In the end I fell short of some of those promises. Sorry about that. Here’s an inside look at how everything implodified.

Ben is Careerist Scum

The middle-to-end of April was swamped by Chevalier. With the end of my first serial drawing to a close, so much of my attention was focused on that project that a lot of other work got lost in the shuffle. Before April even started I’d budgeted a goodly amount of time to get Chevalier squared away, but the beast was bigger and stronger than my poor mind could have anticipated. In the end, because of deadlines and a strict publishing schedule, I had to bump this project to the head of the class to the detriment of my Erotic Ledger calendar.

Ben is a Vacationing Asshole

I took a trip to Mexico. I admit, it was amazing. Beaches, sun, all kind of drinks. I was sauced, dear reader, for the last five days of March and I also didn’t have my computer with me. I could have written by hand, but for the most part I was using them to carry drinks. I can say I’m sorry about that, but I’m definitely not. Mexico was awesome and you should be happy for me, dammit!

Ben performs the equivalent of Sweatshop Labor 

I work—a lot—at a job that punishes me physically and challenges my ability to adequately deal with stress. For the most part I can handle it, but one thing that this gig does is ruins my weekends. I haven’t had an entire weekend free in quite some time. The utter lack of a weekend means that I have to get everything done during the week which is hard when you’re also trying to conduct a regular life. Forget even seeing my boyfriend whose schedule is orders of magnitude more insane than my own.

Ben kind of does this for Free

Though I have a few pieces of work here and there that are available for purchase (at pretty uniformly low prices) the vast majority of my fiction is free to you, dear reader. I love being able to provide free work because to be honest, for most of life, I’ve been broke as fuck. I know that free is  the best price for a lot of people, but also that one can start piling expectations onto free work that the price tag can’t support.

The reality is that this site doesn’t support me, in fact, I support this site. I pay for hosting out-of-pocket instead of bludgeoning you with ads and I don’t mind. If you’d like to support me, buy one (or all) of my stories or tell a friend about my work. If you just want to read free smut, then I promise, this will remain a destination for that sort of thing into the foreseeable future.

Either way, I made promises about what was coming up for April and a lot of those stories didn’t materialize. I apologize and I hope that what did shake out of April was interesting, compelling, and kept you coming back for more. I can’t promise a deluge of content over the next few months, but I promise that there will certainly be good reading on this site.

Thanks for reading,

Ben.

Nerdery & Coinery

So I’m kind of interested in Bitcoins right now. Do you have any? As a quick, silly thing (also to kick some coins to a needy cause) I’ll be writing erotic shorts in exchange for bitcoins. The shorts will be anywhere from 500 to 800 words (at my discretion) and the rate will be about .04 coins. Contact me if you’re interested:

Benjibright@gmail.com, or just leave a message in the comments and I’ll contact you.

1000 Words Banner

1000 Words: Impasse

Salover gave his traveling companion another loaded look. The fifth of the hour. Kerin didn’t look up from his wood carving. The whistle was coming along.

“What?”

“You said the pass would be a shortcut. The bounty’s probably halfway across the kingdom by now.”

Kerin’s knife notched another groove. “It is a shortcut though, isn’t it?”

“Sure, aside from the crazed rampaging mage turning the rain into lava and melting everything outside this cave. Aside from that it’s a hop, skip and a jump to New Lidia.”

“Do you think I receive reports regarding crazed mages?”

Salover didn’t have an answer for that. Continue reading “1000 Words: Impasse” »

Benji Bright

April 26, 2013

Towhomitmayconcern:

Benji will not be coming to school today because he’s not feeling very well at all. He’s taking medicine and resting, trying to get back to equilibrium so to speak. In the mean time he asks that you enjoy the latest chapter of Leaving the League as well as all of his other fine writing. If you would like to send him your best wishes, please send all positive crystal vibrations to his soul-frequency and/or buy some of his work.

Leaving the League, Part Five

I apologized to Ray, sitting in the back seat of my car, for all the shit he had to share it with. I hadn’t been expecting passengers.

“It’s fine, sir,” Ray replied.

“Sir?” I said. When had I become a sir?

“A well-mannered young man if I ever saw one,” Akma said. “I’m betting you weren’t like him at all when you were young.”

Akma had her feet curled up under her and her window down. Her hair whipped in the wind, across her face, and she didn’t seem to care. Ray sat upright in the backseat and his eyes roamed the interior of the car. I’m not entirely sure why I committed to helping him, but once I had, there was no going back. Continue reading “Leaving the League, Part Five” »

1000 Words: Dancing on Mars

Zeb brought the oxygen. It was imported from Earth and Syl said that she could taste the toxicity of it. She was full of shit, of course, but there was something about imported O2 that left you with a mild buzz. I brought the harder stuff: rock candy, fluppers, concatenates, and a hand full of zips that I’d acquired at a premium. From there we headed out to the Limestone.

Zeb’s rover is ancient, but the eerie serenity of the Martian landscape is hard to ruin, even with a chugging, sputtering rover ride. We put on our fishbowls and loaded them up with our earth-oxygen before getting out of the rover. It was a short walk to the entrance of the Limestone made shorter by the reduced gravity. Syl did this really elegant flip through the air that reminded me of a swan, or at least DV—direct visual, of course—footage of swans. Continue reading “1000 Words: Dancing on Mars” »

Sequel Thursday Banner

Nicky Noir & Shin the Pin

You can read the first Nicky Noir story here.

It’s only Monday and I’m already out of good feelings for the week. Here’s a word to the wise: if it’s Monday, stay in bed, snuggle up to someone with no morals or read a goddamned book. Don’t spend a Monday morning—morning for godsake!—trawling Koreatown looking for a pin.

Now, I know a lot of uptown folks won’t be too familiar with the term, I forgive you your ignorance and I’ll lessen the suspense: a pin does in the underworld, the same thing it does in your garments, namely, it sticks things together. They’re go-betweens, intermediaries, conciliators (if you’re the sort that needs a two dollar word to make things plain). I need to find one if I’m going to have any hope of picking up a lead for my case.

Saying ‘my case’ makes it sound like it’s more than just a worried mother looking out for her son, who’s stirred up some trouble by consorting with the city’s seedier element. This wouldn’t be too much of an issue, except that this young man’s mother is practically dripping wealth. One look at mama bear in her black fur coat, chic bob, and tight pressed lips was all Penny—my long-suffered and long-suffering assistant—needed to accept the job on my behalf. I was elsewhere negotiating a different sort of payment with a strawberry-blonde in a love nest across town. Continue reading “Nicky Noir & Shin the Pin” »

1000 Words Banner

1000-ish Words: Art History 201

Half the class was asleep, but the teaching assistant was undeterred. He kept droning on about renaissance painters in the darkened lecture hall while slides flashed by leisurely from the projector. Kevin shifted in his seat and stretched his back to keep focused. There were a dozen places he would rather be and art history wasn’t really his thing. He was a senior on his last liberal arts credit, what could be easier than looking at pictures a couple of afternoons a week? Continue reading “1000-ish Words: Art History 201” »