No, I don’t have one as famous as Chuck Tingle or anything, but I have used multiple ‘nyms in multiple ways for the past 25 years, including 2 that have published erotica and porn, as well as friendship stories that made humorous use of erotica’s and porn’s tropes without ever having the characters engage with each other sexually.

I did it for many different reasons, but one of the most important was that it raised funds for activist work I was doing at the time. In one of my more notable successes, I auctioned off a single, autographed story (on paper, like I was a common Gutenberg, can you believe it?) for over $900 to fund an important conference trip.

So when it became time to make a major push to retire the debt with which Richard Carrier’s lawsuit saddled FreethoughtBlogs, I thought to myself, “Self,” I thought, “what was the most successful thing you’ve ever done when you needed to raise money for a good cause?” And, obviously, I thought of porn.

So I have decided to once again auction off my skills of an artist. In this case, however, I’m offering you more control over my keyboard and less paper and autographs. For this fundraiser, there will be an auction and also a separate, flat-rate bonus round.

For the first, the winning bid will entirely and solely commission me, Crip Dyke, to write a story, humorous or serious, in which main characters the winner outlines engage in friendship, romance and/or hot steamy sex, as specified by the winner alone.

My custom stories have been used in the past as birthday, anniversary, or other gifts for friends, partners & spouses. They have been used to open up dialog about including new kinds of sex in a relationship when bringing up the possibility directly seemed scary, or to share a fantasy that someone felt as though they could not adequately describe. Other times a custom story can be used simply to tell a person how much you care about and appreciate them. One was even used to embed a confession and apology – a strategy that appeared to work in restoring that relationship’s balance. (Though please, don’t mistreat anyone just for the opportunity to get more from one of my stories!)

If you are the winner, you can expect the final story to fall between 2000 and 6000 words and to be actually edited, unlike the work I typically post to my blog. For best results, I will expect you to be actively involved in imagining what type of story would make you most happy and to e-mail back and forth several times to make sure the final product does not violate any important ideas you hold about who the characters should be and how they should experience their shared world. Because both communication and art take time, allow 30 days from first e-mail contact about the story to delivery of the final product. While I expect to take significantly less than this, total time required will depend in part on the prompt return of e-mails asking for your custom parameters.

You may use this story as you like, so long as you do not sell it for publication, include it in your own for-sale publication, put the text up on a paywalled website, or put any part of it on merchandise for sale. This is slightly broader than unlimited non-commercial use as you should feel free to include choice quotes on your business website or in other free but commercially related venues, perhaps even in your personal bio, so long as the quotes themselves are not behind a paywall. At your whim the story can be published on this blog or delivered privately to you for your exclusive use.

As a (former) erotic/pornograhic professional short story writer who has taught workshops on short story writing generally and sex story writing specifically, my excellent work does not come free, or even cheap. I expect to spend more than 8 hours on this project, and at the US$15 minimum living wage that I support, that would mean that the absolute minimum value of this project is US$120. If there is no bid matching or exceeding $120, there will, sadly, be no custom short story delivered to a single person this month – though if the monthly fundraisers continue, there will be future opportunities to win this rare and coveted Crip Dyke custom work.

The winner of this auction will be determined according to rules developed by my FtB friend and generous mailer of curiously light cardboard boxes, Marcus Ranum: You may bid in the comments below or via e-mail (sent to CripDyke on Gmail) for more privacy. All bids will be assumed to be denominated in US dollars. The highest bid will take the prize for the price of $1 more than the second highest bid, or $121 if there are no other qualifying bids. So feel free to bid what you’re willing to pay without worrying that you are overbidding.

But wait, that’s not all! 

If the second-highest bid is over US $200, I will write a custom story for that bidder as well, for exactly the amount of the bid.

But wait, that’s still not all!

Of course, as worthy of support as both the arts and FtB might happen to be, not everyone has $200 or even $121 to spend on the effort. This is why I am also offering a community story. For this effort, every single person who donates $10 and/or sends me a really good sob story about why their under $10 donation should be sufficient (“really good” judged by my whim, of course) will get to contribute one single detail of character, setting or plot to a community creative effort where all the details provided are woven into a single NSFW story, probably intended to be humorous, though I’m reserving artistic freedom here, to be published right here on this blog. Donations in excess of $10 to this effort entitle the donor to specify one detail per $10 given (rounding up or down at my whim, but larger donations are more likely to be rounded up).

Let me be clear here: I fully expect people to try to use this fundraiser to suggest details that appear hard to incorporate into any short story, or even details that appear to contradict other suggested details should they appear in the comments. There will be no detail, silly, nonsensical or contradictory enough to be omitted. My mind is up for this challenge you trolls, so bring it if you got it.

If this effort fails to raise $120, donations will be kept and suggested details will be held over to the next fundraiser, with a community story being written as soon as donations exceed the $120 minimum. If the community story raises $500 or more for the effort, I will also record a dramatic reading of our collective’s story and upload the audio here for unlimited non-commercial use.

All donations for the auction or the community-created story are expected to be verified by screenshot or other reasonably suitable method. There will be no FBI investigations here, but as this work is undertaken on behalf of FtB I have a duty to the network to make a minimal effort to verify that people are donating what they have pledged.

Good luck and good bidding!