Wish you were here!

• #sexndrugsnrocknroll laughs, music and local colour, exotic location: wish you were here! https://t.co/09bweXnYXS pic.twitter.com/mI9pyPPxRD

— Book Promotion #ad (@book_tribe) January 2, 2016

I’ll never have this experience again!

The hot in Hot Times in #Goa #novelines #blogpost #bookpromo http://t.co/tZNBBzDtuR via @ldbahnan I will never have this experience again!

— Linda Bahnan (@ldbahnan) September 24, 2015

The hot in Hot Times

The sex in the Goa book is difficult to think about at the moment because I’m engaged in writing another one, and this one is nowhere near as explicit. With the Goa book, I wanted the sex to be warts–n-all real (vaginal warts? No; not that real). I am certain that none of it is gratuitous and that all of it advances the plot. Well, anyway, here’s a taster:

“The sign outside the shop read:

‘Shafi Arts: Manufacturers, Exporters & Dealers in: Kashmir Handknotted Carpits, Chainstitch rugs, Jewellery, Old Coppet, Silver, Tanka and others goods. We accept American Express, Dinners Club etc’

The gentle breeze touching the Rajasthani scarves which danced beside the sign also ruffled the silky hair of the handsome shopkeeper.

Shafi did not get up when Lee entered but nodded his head as if he had been expecting her. He called his assistant to bring tea. Lee could feel his eyes on her as she walked around the mini-emporium, picking up and examining the eye-catching items on sale: copies of miniatures from the Moghul era, pipes for smoking hashish and opium, chunks of turquoise from Ladakh, Buddhist prints depicting ‘The Wheel of Life’, statues of the Hindu gods, delicately-embroidered shawls and papier maché boxes. It was a long time before either of them spoke.

“You know I only came in because you didn’t hassle me like the others,” she ventured at last.
“You are most welcome,” he replied, salaaming her and bowing.
“This is pretty,” she said, indicating a silver ring with a mood stone set into it.
His hand swept from his forehead to where the ring was reposing in a glass case next to the counter. He slipped it onto her finger, twisting it with his own slender brown ones.
“It will change colour to how you feel every time,” he explained, gripping her hand. “It’s yours. Take it.”
“Alexandrite,” she said, examining the ring and avoiding his eyes. His hand was still holding hers against his chest. “Well, imitation Alexandrite, but who’s counting?” She made a feeble attempt to remove her hand. “I used to work for a jeweller. But why should that interest you?”
“Take also any other thing you see in my shop that you like.”
The air was charged with sexual tension, broken by the arrival of the tea. Lee pulled her hand away.
“I will wear it for a short time, anyway,” she said. She caught the delicate aroma of Persian Roses from the cups, reminding her of samovars made by other young, handsome men in the mountains of Iran, Kashmir and Afghanistan. She leaned across the counter and kissed Shafi’s parted lips, dusky pink and indented like the bow of Arjuna, the hunter. Her heart seemed to stop mid-beat but her cunt was pounding. He looked at the front of her tiger print shorts as if he could see the throbbing and, with an expression of pain, lifted his kurta, showing the hard-on through extended folds of his loose-fitting salwar.
“Shafi,” she managed to blurt out at last, “I – I have been watching you. I find I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“And me too, I can’t.” He sighed. “Aaah. Last night I dreamed we were together in Paradise.”
“What were we doing?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“Everything,” he responded with similar hoarseness. “Shadows of people were all around us, watching.” His voice became matter-of-fact. “These are shameful thoughts for a Muslim, you know,” he said.
“I don’t care.”
“And me too, I don’t.”
“I want you inside me, now,” said Lee in a trembling voice. She had read the line in a book once and had waited for just such an opportunity to use it. He glided over to the door and leaned on it to close it, then dragged across a wooden bench to keep it closed.
“I can help you.” He pronounced it: ‘hellup’.
“Oh?”
“Make you come.”
“Oh.”
He took firm hold of her hand and guided her astride the bench where he leaned over her and started rubbing the heel of his hand against her clitoris. The shorts were not tight. The only tightness was inside her as he slid his fingers in and moved them up and down, achingly slowly, his face so close to hers she could have dived into his eyes through the electrically-charged ether between the two of them. Then, without warning, he straightened up, withdrew his digits and leapt off the bench,
By the time the customers managed to get the door open, Shafi and Lee were in their places on opposite sides of the counter, discussing the merits of a sandalwood elephant god.
“You will come back tonight?” he whispered.
“Of course,” she replied and fled to the beach, warm and wet between the thighs.”

A taster of the book

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• L. Banana: I haven't used this one for a while. Hope it still exists – this link to a preview of Hot Times in #Goa http://t.co/Ccb15fiQX6

— Book Promotion #ad (@book_tribe) February 5, 2015

Keep Calm and Ride Your Pony!

The second of the Hot Times in Goa soundtrack Reel Rebels Radio programmes is out on Mixcloud with a mixed bag of readings, chat, Bollywood, Goan pop, ragga, monks chanting and good ole rock ‘n’ roll. If you missed the first programme, look right on ‘Recent Posts’ and there it is. It was great fun to do and I hope Teri will ask me onto her programme again.

Get back on yer pony and ride!

Well, I don’t know but I must’ve done something right because I’ve been invited back on Reel Rebels Radio for Part Two of ‘Hot Times in Goa’: the soundtrack. If you missed Part One, scroll down and click the link to Reel Rebels Radio, ‘Ride Your Pony’, the show that’s hosted by my good friend, Teri Bloom. I’ll be reading extracts from my Goa book again and playing the accompanying tracks. An eclectic mix, these include hits by Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell and Elvis, as well as Bollywood classics, Konkani pop and good ole Rock ‘n’ Roll.

We’re recording on Saturday, it’ll be professionally cleaned up (gaps removed, that is, although, come to think of it, the content will be somewhat dirtier than the last time) by the sound man and then put on Mixcloud: watch this space for the link. I hope you’ll enjoy listening to it as much as I’m going to enjoy making it.

Hot Times on Reel Rebels Radio – Ride Your Pony!

• L. Banana: 'Hot Times in #Goa' – the soundtrack: listen to me read extracts and punctuate them with music. Enjoy! http://t.co/xoyCs2Lizy

— Book Promotion #ad (@book_tribe) November 1, 2014

Pinterest is taking me over

Pinterest is influencing what I write: my obsession with using it as an aid to writing has led to boards on works in progress. I find myself describing the pins in my book, incorporating them into the story. It’s a Storyboard. Perhaps it’s the hand of God.

I’m currently working on two fictionalisations: The Paris Years of Elias Habash and Travels with my Language: they’re featured here among other wips and boards of interest but Click my name or ‘See on Pinterest‘ to look at boards, as clicking individual pictures below does weird things – or perhaps it’s just me:

Oh, poo!

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AUTHOR MEMBER

My heart sinks to my boots…a very disappointing result on my freebie Kindle version of August 3/4 – only 90. That frenzy of social networking was hardly worth the effort, I’m afraid. However, on a more positive note, paperbacks have been steadily selling when I do this myself. Perhaps the old way is best. Having totally underestimated the number that would go at the launch, I ordered 50 more and they almost all went at a local reading which I wasn’t even signed up to do; I just sort of insinuated myself. Business makes you pushy, inevitably. No; I’m misleading you: I was already pushy. I also gave away three on the tube and train via the ‘Books on the Underground’ scheme just by chatting to people who were already carrying a book.

Still regretting not having some, well loads of, dishonestly acquired reviews, rather than waiting for genuine ones to appear. Oh dear; business also makes you unethical. Well, of course it does. I have one more genuine 5 star review on the AskDavid site. Here it is: http://bit.ly/XJDMEk

Fabulous Book Party but, Phew! Glad it’s over.

Don’t you wish you’d been there – at the Anchor & Hope, River Lea yesterday? Everyone had a great time and the weather was perfect – not hot, not cold and it didn’t rain. I sold all the books I had and could have sold them more than twice over: this was a surprise. There is no better sight than the angry scowl of someone who was too late to get a copy. It was free on Kindle all day so I had to keep Tweeting, which was short-sighted of me but, on the positive side, stopped me from eating too much of the lovely food, prepared and served by Siobhan and Tom. Music supplied by ‘The Walking Wounded’: http://www.walking-wounded.co.uk/ Hospitality by Pat, the landlady and her family.

Onwards and upwards: next stop – Paris in the 50s. Follow my board ‘Work in Progress: his Paris years’ for storyboard: https://uk.pinterest.com/lindabahnan/work-in-progress-his-paris-years/