Since Erin and I have avoided any particularly hilarious or awkward incidents with our respective mothers lately, we thought we’d bring you a Your Mom story from elsewhere in the romance community.

Carrie Pack’s Designs on You will be out on August 19th from Interlude Press, but can be pre-ordered from them now.

Designs on You

If graphic designer Scott Parker has to design one more cupcake company logo, he might lose it. When tasked with retouching photos for a big fashion client, a stunning, lanky model mesmerizes Scott and occupies his thoughts and fantasies long after the assignment is finished.

Scott soon discovers that the object of his desire is nothing like the backstory he imagined. Despite Jamie Donovan’s aloof and dismissive behavior, Scott struggles to forge a friendship with him, all the while trying to keep his attraction at bay.

Will Jamie follow through on signals that he may be interested, or will he forever be the beautiful man in the photograph, an untouchable fantasy?

Carrie writes to us about her mom’s support of her work:

I think I first broke the ice with my mom about sex when I was six. I dragged her into the bathroom with me after dinner one night and said, “So what’s this period thing I keep hearing about.” That’s basically been the tone of our relationship ever since.

When I was 23, I had to explain to her why women of our generation use condoms and take birth control pills. When I was 25, we were making a Halloween costume for my nephew—a black cat—and as she was stuffing the tail, she made a jerking off motion. I started to say something: “That looks like—” and stopped myself because I *knew* she would know what I meant. She replied with, “I’m your mother, Carrie. I’m not stupid.”

Even with all of her willingness to discuss sex openly with me, I was still nervous to share my fic and the original work that followed because she may be open-minded, but she’s also 65 years old. There’s still that generation gap (see above where she didn’t know about STDs) and she’s so VERY heterosexual, it’s not even funny. I once suggested to her that “all people are more sexually fluid than they would admit,” and she said, “Not everyone.”

But my mom is the most supportive of all my family, and she’d be one of my best friends even if I wasn’t her daughter, so GDI, I was going to share my book with her come hell or high water. She gave me feedback on the early draft, telling me to flesh out my characters and whatnot. She didn’t mention the m/m sex, and I wasn’t keen on discussing it with her at length. (Although, I did have a moment after I sent it to here where I went, “OMG I just sent my mom a book that contains gay sex… and I wrote it!”)

Fast forward a few months, and I sent her a final draft of my manuscript, she read it and said “It’s much better.” When I pressed her for more specific feedback, I got a text that said, “Oh, I like the beef that you added. Pun intended.”

I guess she liked the blow job.