Welcome to Tuesday Teasers with ZA Maxfield! This week we have author Lloyd Meeker joining us!

Fans of Teaser Tuesdays know what’s going to happen here:

I’ll post a snippet from one of Lloyd Meeker’s books with the character names asterisked out.

Your mission is to guess which of Lloyd’s books the excerpt comes from! Email your answer to me,  zamaxfield (at) zamaxfield DOT com. Please be sure to put “Teaser Tuesday” in the subject line! I’ll draw a random winner each week. It’s that simple! Come play along… If you guess correctly, you’ll be entered to win a prize!

Here’s a little bit about Lloyd:

Lloyd Meeker can’t help what he writes – stories arising from the between places, the mystical overlapping between the worlds of matter and spirit, and the eldritch beauty that dwells there. It’s his natural habitat.

He’s in love with the adventure and magic of living there, loves plunging into stories full of both, and wants to take you along. Mostly he’s in love with love, and believes deeply in the power of love to overcome any challenge. He’s known it in his own life, and seen it in the lives of others.

In addition to his written work, which includes novels, essays, poetry and short stories, he has served since 2008 as a judge in the Queer Foundation’s annual National High School Seniors Essay Contest, which promotes effective writing by, about, and/or for queer youth, and awards scholarships to the winners. Finalists are selected from schools across the United States by members of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Happily ensorcelled by music, subtle energy healing, and the wonders of nature, he lives with his very understanding husband in southern Florida, among friends and family, orchids, and giant hibiscus that take his breath away every morning.

You can find out more about Lloyd on Facebook, Twitter, his website, or email him.

HERE’s the snippet:

“Have you ever mated in spirit-body?”

A shudder of rising desire surprised ***. “No.” His voice was low, hungry. “Not yet.”

“I will show you. Come.” Together they floated to the grass. “We sit facing each other. Like this.” He sat cross-legged and beckoned to ***. “You sit close. Closer. Put your legs over mine. Yes. Put your feet behind my back. Yes. I put mine behind you. Put your arms on my shoulders. Yes.”

At first touch, ***’s breath caught. He whimpered, wild with excitement, and leaned forward for a long kiss.

******* broke the kiss with a smile, gazing into ***’s eyes. “I hold your waist, draw you closer so you sit on me, and our spirit- bodies unite.”

Their eyes held, unwavering, deep. *** gasped with pleasure. “Oh! It feels just like—”

“Yes. Exactly like. Closer than bone and flesh, than breathing. It is good. Now we embrace. Tighter. Yes.”

Only the fires of first touch, of joining were familiar to ***. Then nothing was at all like anything he had felt before. He couldn’t bear his own ecstasy, yet knew it without effort, just as he knew *******’s. They formed one being, one matrix of power, one undulating wave on the vastness that lifted them, drowning them.

He became vast, permeable, fluid, gas, solid, a tree’s memory, desire fierce as a hawk’s cry. His body/not-body was denser than stone, or quick and diaphanous, wild and mercurial. He sighed, and his breath blossomed into brilliantly feathered birds that soared away in a breath-taking flashing of wings, bringing the feast of his lover’s tongue back to him, sweet as ripe fruit dripping, *******’s breath becoming the same birds, nesting and mating in his throat.

The ***** itself gathered them up in their laughter and lunging play, binding them together with ropes of stars, firing their bodies into untraceable arcs, wheels of light and shadow, giving and receiving.

It stretched them glittering across the rough floor of scorching deserts, snaring them in cactus and brush, it calmed them in the icy violence of thunderheads, pressed them together into melting lava, a mountain, a valley, a well, into veins of glowing quartz, sharp fingers of clarity racing through crushing mass, triumphant and free.

******* was a volcano and *** an ocean meeting him, infinite welcome. He evaporated and condensed again around the heat of newborn rock, caressing him with his eternal waves.

Then, helpless and all-powerful, all his chakras flowered open, his body swelled, failing to contain his essence, bursting open into stars rising in a spiral fountain, twining together, together melting and falling—into spent ash, soil, stone, silent water, root, rest—complete.

In a long, slow return to himself, his senses reorganized into familiar patterns. He stared at *******, but couldn’t form words. He ran his hands up *******’s arms to his shoulders, gave up trying to speak, and buried his face in his neck.

“Now we are united not only by your action in my childhood, ***, but also by our loving,” ******* murmured, stroking ***’s hair. “*** and ******* have both chosen this—together now in a good way. Because of this our paths will cross often, and well.”

~ * ~ * ~

Thanks for joining us, Lloyd!

If you think you know what book this excerpt came from, don’t forget to email ZAM at zamaxfield (at) zamaxfield DOT com with your guess!