Safer Sex for the Non-Monogamous

Dark purple on light purple line drawing of three people in bed together. A dark purple blanket is pulled up over them and on the blanket it reads 'Safer Sex for the Non-Monogamous by Jess Mahler'

Non-monogamous folks talk about the importance of having safer sex alot, but there don’t seem to have too many discussions about what it is, how to have it, and what happens when things go wrong anyway.Plus, there seems to be this ideal that safer sex is just about preventing STIs. (And sometimes pregnancy.) Safety in sex is a whole lot more than that. It’s injuries, and trauma, and consent, and having some important discussions with other people, and making real choices about what risks you will and won’t take, and… well, enough to fill a book.So I did.As usual in these books, I don’t offer much in the way of answers. You need to do you. What I offer is a lot of information and some questions to help you figure out what you want to do with that information.

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Polyamory and Kink

polyamory and kink ebook cover

Like it says on the front, this is a book about polyamory and kink. More specifically, this is a book about adding kink to your polyamorous relationships.
Whether you are curious about kink yourself or have a partner who is entering a kink relationship and you want to know what to expect, this book will cover the bases. Including
— what is kink
— healthy vs unhealthy kink
— how kink will impact other relationships in the polycule
— how to find and connect with kinksters
— polyam and kink culture clash (and how to avoid it)
— kinky approaches to nonmonogamy
— combining power exchange with egalitarian polyamory
— and more

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The Polyamorous Home

Light purple on dark purple background. Three people with their arms around eachother looking at a house. Text: The Polyamorous Home, by Jess Mahler.

Polyamorous relationships challenge the way mainstream society expects people to live. Mainstream assumptions about who sleeps where, how a family manages their money, and even who lives together, fail before the sheer variety of ways polyam folks build our relationships.

The Polyamorous Home is practical a guide for polyam folk on creating homes and living situations that suit our lives and our relationships. Whether you live alone or with a dozen of your partners, friends, and family, you can create a home life that works for you.

Alternative living arrangements
Budgeting for dates
Moving in together
Sleeping arrangements
Holidays
Prioritizing the individual or the community
And more…

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Polyamory and Pregnancy

Book cover in shades of purple. Text: Polyamory and Pregnancy
Image: three figures holding each other, the middle figure visibly pregnant.
Text: by Jessica Burde

The first complete guide to pregnancy in polyamorous relationships, Polyamory and Pregnancy covers every step of welcoming a new life into your polycule. Whether you are planning ahead for future children or are on your way to the baby shower, you will find something here to help on your journey:
– Unexpected pregnancies
– Planning for pregnancy
– Important decisions during and after pregnancy
– Poly-friendly prenatal care
– Birth certificates and paternity
– Custody and co-parenting
– And more…

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First Came Trust

Black text on teal background Title: “First Came Trust”, capital letters have ivy and budding rose vines growing on them. Under the text is an image of a rose bud on top of a ivy leaf Under image, text: By Jess Mahler

A chance meeting on a beach. A last-minute rescue. Secret pledges and disapproving family members. These are the things that make a great love story. But this isn’t a love story — not yet. With Lilah’s life on the line, ey will take the chance that Noble Bethania offers em. But with that chance comes risk. Love may come later, but first, they will need to trust.

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Excerpt

Sherzod and Dalma were surprised when the guards all left, not one remained on watch to keep them from escaping. But Lilah understood, and ey started laughing. Laughing and laughing, hysterical now, tears seeping down eir face.

Ey could escape in an instant, release the beast, and it would snap the ropes that bound em. But only if ey was willing to kill eir siblings. The guards did not dare kill Lilah themselves, though a few days earlier ey had begged them to. Instead, they had left em to die in a prison made of love.

Dalma yelled at Lilah, begging em to settle, to explain. Sherzod tried to soothe, to calm. Both fought the ropes, hoping for enough slack, enough leverage, to fight themselves free.

It was not Lilah’s siblings but the beast within em that snapped Lilah out of eir hysteria. The beast lunged for freedom, knowing it could snap these ropes in a moment. Snap them, and then…

No. They may be doomed, and Lilah may be damned, but Lilah would hold off the beast until eir last breath. While Dalma and Sherzod lived there was a chance they could survive this.

“I’m sorry,” was all Lilah could spare a breath to say. Ey threw emself into the most important battle of eir life.

Bound by his Oath

Book cover, grey text on dark green background. "Bound by his Oath by Jess Mahler" The 'O' in 'Oath' is oversized. Inside it is a knight wearing chainmail, looking away from the viewer with head bowed and holding a reversed sword. Behind him is a sunset.

Reimund Swiđhun has it made. With the king’s blessing, he will capture Lady Mildthryth, marry her, and finally have land to call his own.

Lady Mildthryth Rúna has been fighting off would-be ‘suitors’ for months. She will marry on her terms or not at all. On their world, a noblewoman is expected to marry and accept her subordinate place.

Unfortunately for Reimund, Milthryth’s people have other traditions. She refuses give up and be a broodmare for any of the knights and lordlings the king sends after her. And before long, she has Reimund right where she wants him.

For Reimund, the only thing more shameful than being captured by a woman is bending knee to one, but he will do what he must to keep his friends and followers safe. Even if it means spending the rest of his life Bound by His Oath.

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Excerpt

“I have a proposal for you, Sir Reimund. I doubt it will be to your liking, but you might find it has its merits.”

“I am, of course, at your service, Lady Mildthryth,” he said, choosing his words like his footing over those damnable rocks.

To his surprise, she laughed again. “Yes, precisely.” She took a deep breath, and Reimund braced himself for her charge. “You will take oath as my liegeman.”

She spoke softly, so only he could hear her. But the words landed like a blade through his guts. He snarled, unable to restrain himself in that moment of shock. “You dare…”

The warrior stepped forward, but Lady Mildthryth held up her hand, stopping him.

“I suggest you control yourself, sirrah.”

Reimund forced himself to step back, to uncurl his fists. “If you were a man, I’d challenge you for such an insult.”

She looked at him for a moment as if he had two heads, then shrugged, “If I understand you Norns, if I were a man, it wouldn’t be an insult.” She gestured out to the distant woods. “You have built your ship, invader. You may live with it or die in it.

“Your man was ready to die for you. Will you have the courage to live for him?”

She waited, but he said nothing. “For the time being, I would keep this oath private. Only you and I would know of it. Once you have given your oath, I will wed you, making you lord of Oak Haven. You will rule all here. I will rule you.”

What You Will

Cover of What You Will: Black calligraphy on 'parchment' background, "What You Will" -- capital letters backed by rainbow squares. "A Queer-er Shakespear" black quill on rainbow square "By Jess Mahler"

Viola is in love with Duke Orsino

Duke Orsino is in love with Countess Olivia

Countess Olivia is in love with Cesario

Cesario is really Viola in disguise…

or is he?

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a very queer play,

But what if you could make it queerer?

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Excerpt

She continued down the road but could not shake Olivia’s token from her mind. “I am the man.” And the words roused a hope in her that she dared not look at. A hope she crushed ruthlessly. “If it be so, as ’tis, poor lady, she were better love a dream.” Without conscious thought, she wrapped her arms around herself. Her own dreams made no sense to her. “Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness, wherein the pregnant enemy does much.”

She passed by a still pond, and her reflection caught her eye. The man Cesario stared back at her. “How easy is it for the proper-false in women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!” A hand raised to touch her — his! cheek. He was her; she was him. “Alas,” she murmured, “our frailty is the cause, not we! For such as we are made of, such we be.” His hands explored his face, confirming that eyes saw truth. Brushed the ends of the short hair. Hope and fear and disbelief warred in his reflected eyes. “How will this fadge?”

Viola forced herself to turn away from the pond, to closer her eyes to the image there. “My master loves her dearly; and I, poor monster,” her voice broke, and her eyes turned back to the pond, but she forced them forward, “fond as much on him.

“And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.”

She walked for a time, pausing again only when she came in sight of Orsino’s manor.

“What will become of this? As I am man,” and she bit off the words, “my state is desperate for my master’s love. As I am woman,–now alas the day!” and these words too were heartfelt, burdened with dredged up pain, “what thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!”

A deep breath, a sterning of her features, and she strode up the lane to face her master and his disappointment. “O time! thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me to untie!”