Christmas & Sex Toys?

by J.P. Barnaby

So, whoever thought you’d see a Christmas story about sex toys?

Yeah, me either—but, when TC Blue issues and order, the rest of us listen.  She decided she wanted a holiday anthology called “Butt Babes in Boyland”, and most of us were too afraid to refuse. I mean, have you met TC? Have you ever watched her go off on the check-in counter at the Atlanta airport? No? Yeah, you do what she says. Anyways, when we talked about it at OutlantaCon, someone mentioned the Isle of Misfit Toys (the Rudolph movie), and an idea started to form in my head. What would happen if they were misfit sex toys? Would they have group therapy? Would they want to get away from Santa’s workshop? What kind of toys would band together? It was an interesting idea, one that I was eager to explore.

How did I get involved in the Butt anthologies in the first place, you ask? That is an interesting story too. In May 2013, I was at RT (Romantic Times) in Kansas City, about to go hang out with Jesse Jackman, Dirk Caber, and Johnny Parker. My cell phone rang and I looked down to see Kage Alan’s cute little face on the screen. So, of course, I ignored it. (Kidding) Kage was out at OutlantaCon (which happened to conflict with RT that year). He offered me place in the upcoming Butt Ninjas from Hell anthology. I mentioned that I didn’t know a fecking thing about ninjas or demons. So, he challenged me to do it – to take a break from my emotionally terrorizing novels – and write something funny. With Aaron and Little Boy Lost under my belt, with my branding set, could I do comedy?

Well, imagine that – I could.

About Butt Babes in Boyland

The holidays are a time for visiting with family and friends, and sharing tales of peace, childlike innocence, and good will towards all mankind. These are not those stories. Instead, sit back and allow yourself to be regaled with the colorful adventures of toy-themed parties with a twist, the future of Elf Enforcement, misfit sex toys at the North Pole, the mysterious Workshop 69, special delivery packages, and a serious case of potentially mistaken identity. This year, the Butt-thology authors cordially invite you to join them in creating a new tradition.

This holiday season, it’s not just turkeys getting stuffed!

Available at: Wilde City, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble

An Exclusive Excerpt from The Isle of Misfit Sex Toys

“It’s enough already, by Claus. Why do they keep playing Christmas carols?” Bob sat back against the discarded sofa he’d salvaged from one of Santa’s old storage units behind the workshop. “Let It Snow” drifted from the open vent above them, and he initiated the protocol used to close his eyes. It took less than a second, but the plastic drifted down over the optical circuits in his sockets. He might have looked like an elf, but beauty, as they say, is only skin-deep. Or, at least, polyethylene deep, anyway.

“I don’t know. I k-k-k-k-kind of like this s-s-s-s-song,” Buzz stuttered from his place in the circle.

“We might as well get started.” Bob sighed. “Is everyone here?” He directed the question to the room, and Dil answered as he turned on yet another lantern in their tomb-like home. It would have been depressing in the utility closet of Santa’s workshop if it weren’t for the alternative. They were all cast-off misfit toys destined for the junk pile. Then Bob rescued them and found a safe place for every toy to live. They considered him their king, but he just wanted someone to abate the crushing loneliness.

“I think so, Bob.”

Toys began to push odds and ends into a circle, nothing the humans or even the elves would see as organization, but someplace for them to sit, nonetheless. Boxes for the less fortunate, but some more industrious toys found bean bags and even doll furniture to sit on. Each of the toys settled into their place, some with more difficulty than others, but eventually, the room quieted. They’d worked their little circle up to six toys. Sometimes they had more, sometimes less, but for the time being, six seemed like a comfortable number.

Bob stood at the head of the circle, next to the severed doll’s head that had rolled into their hideaway a few months back.

“We’re all here for the same reason,” Bob started, and a hush fell over their little group, broken only by the uncontrolled, intermittent buzzing noise they’d all learned to ignore. “My name is Bob, Battery Operated Boyfriend, designed for a single purpose, one that I can no longer fulfill. Once considered an advanced robotics pleasure toy, now I’m no longer… fully functional, but I’m okay with that. The trilithium battery that powers my neural substructure will keep me running for another hundred years, so I have to find my new purpose. That is my goal, to find my new purpose. Who wants to go next?”

“I w-w-w-w-w-will.”

“Okay, Buzz, go ahead.”

“Yay, Buzz,” two tiny silver spheres chimed in, and Buzz smiled.

“My name is B-B-B-B-Buzz, and I’ve been here for about a m-m-m-m-month. Like Bob, I was d-d-d-d-designed for a p-pretty specific p-purpose. I m-m-m-massage things.” The small spheres on the right giggled, but Buzz continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I w-w-w-wanna learn to c-c-c-control my stut-t-stutter.”

“Thank you, Buzz,” Bob said quietly. “Now, since you found his introduction so funny, Wally, maybe you guys should go next.”

“I’m Wally and he’s Ben,” Wally announced.

“Wally, do we have to go through this every time?” Bob asked with a quiet sigh.

“What? We have to say our names every time, even though we all know each other. Why put him through his fears?” He had a hard time making his tinny little voice sound angry, especially with the smooth expression across the metallic surface of his ball face.

“It’s okay,” Ben interrupted. “We know what our joint purpose is. Our biggest fear is that we’ll be separated and lost.”

Wally rolled to the left, and if Wally and Ben had hands, they’d have joined them.

“Yes, yes, and we all know that Dil the dildo is terrified of the dark. Can we move on to more pressing business like finding a place to live that doesn’t smell like cabbage?” the severed head asked. “I’d also really like to do something about being more mobile. Maybe a skateboard and some arms?”

“Candy, I understand how you’re feeling, but your body deflated. We don’t even know where it is. As for the arms, what exactly are we going to attach them to?” Bob asked patiently, like they hadn’t had that same argument every week.

“Oh, that’s easy for you to say, Mr. Not Fully Functional. At least you can get up and walk around. At least you can get away from the insanity and stand at the door watching where we should be.”

As a whole, the group turned toward the door that led into Santa’s workshop. Though he hated himself for it, Bob felt a longing in his actuators that just wouldn’t die. During the brief time he’d been with Christelpher, the elf who’d created him, they’d been happy. Then his elf slipped at the top of the present-wrapping machine, probably because of the lube that had seemed permanently on his hands. He fell, pointed ears over belled shoes, across the conveyer belt and into the machine. He came out with bows in places they had no reason to be and ribbon wrapped so tightly around his neck he’d been blue as a Smurf. In fact, they’d thought he was a Smurf toy for a few minutes, until the horrible truth had dawned.

Bob still thought of Christelpher often, especially in the dark of night as he wished for the comfort of his slick hands and the whispers of love.

“Hey, Bob, you want to get your head back in the game here? We were talking about how to get ourselves tossed into one of those present sacks and out of here.”

“This isn’t a good idea. What happens when some eight-year-old girl ends up with us?” Wally asked with a smooth expression.

“Oh look, Mommy, I got marbles,” Candy cried in an unnaturally high girly voice. “I’m a broken doll, and you, Bob, can climb down off the shelf and find yourself a Ken doll. We can all find a place outside this room.”

Bob turned toward the cracked sliver of mirror lying against the wall and considered his elven reflection. No one outside the Pole would want a sex toy that looked like an elf. He wasn’t even sure anyone here would, especially one that didn’t work. It didn’t matter where he went, but he could at least help the others.

“Okay, the key is getting to the present-wrapping machine…”

About J.P. Barnaby

Award winning romance novelist, J.P. Barnaby has penned over a dozen books including the Working Boys series, the Little Boy Lost series, In the Absence of Monsters, and Aaron. As a bisexual woman, J.P. is a proud member of the GLBT community both online and in her small town on the outskirts of Chicago. A member of Mensa, she is described as brilliant but troubled, sweet but introverted, and talented but deviant. She spends her days writing software and her nights writing erotica, which is, of course, far more interesting. The spare time that she carves out between her career and her novels is spent reading about the concept of love, which, like some of her characters, she has never quite figured out for herself.

Find out more about J.P. on her Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Tumblr or Amazon.