Sexual jealousy

So to develop my own erotic novel, I thought I’d continue to explore the theme of jealousy. I’m going to write a scene where Christophe Girder probes (??) Aurora Fox about her relationship with Miguel. To further echo clit-lit classic 50 Shades of Grey, I thought I’d also romanticise abusive relationships a bit and make wild assumptions about the BDSM lifestyle. (I admit that when I first heard of BDSM I thought it was a kind of reconstituted wood). I’m also going to pretend that feminism never happened. Here goes:

There was something very obviously on Christophe Girder’s intriguingly dominant labyrinthine European insanely-rich mind. He was silent, brooding, preoccupied. At first, Aurora Fox thought he might be constipated but a bit of light questioning clarified everything.

“Are you constipated, Christophe?” she asked, getting to the nub of the matter in the only way a faux-naif media studies student from Bramhall can.

“Ah,” he murmured, dismissively. “Eet ees…nuzzing. But,” he continued, conveniently helping the plot along, “I can’t ‘elp but wonder about the exact nature and history of your relationship weez zees Miguel guy but I am too much of a smouldering icon to come out and say straightaway zat I am ze jealous. I need ze – ‘ow you say? – ‘elp?”

“So you’re jealous?” whispered Aurora, making it absolutely clear to the reader what was going on. “You have no reason to be jealous of Miguel! I mean, OK, he’s gorgeous and he really fancies me and he tried to kiss me and we get on really well and everything but he’s…just…a friend.” She paused. “By that, I mean I don’t want him to shag me and/or smack me around.”

“I do not understand zees word ‘friend,'” breathed Christophe. He looked at her with such wounded, damaged longing it became instantly clear to her that he’d been emotionally and psychologically traumatised as a child, to the point where we expect the reader to understand and even empathise with the reasons behind him getting off on slapping women’s arses really quite painfully. In a special red room with a cupboard full of gynaecological implements. “My only friend in ze world abused my boy parts when I was adolescent child, so you can see how I’m fixed.” He shrugged, hopelessly.

“Oh, Christophe!” Aurora mouthed, silently. (There are only so many times you can use the word ‘whispered’ and retain credibility, you know). “I don’t care about Miguel! I don’t want him! I just want you, you freakin’ hot hunk of sexy billionaire real-estate! I promise to let you demean and humiliate me as much as you want…”

“Pah!” spat Christophe. “You are just saying zat.”

“No!” cried Aurora. “No, I’m not! You can do anything to me. Anything! Apart from one thing…”

Christophe’s breath hitched. “Not…?”

“Yes,” she said nodding gravely.

“Aurora,” he said, taking both her tiny girl hands in his enormous man ones. His grey eyes were aflame and also alight and a bit ablaze with a nameless but very profound grey-coloured emotion. “I promise that eef you sign my creepy contract I will never ever subject you to any music by The Lighthouse Family. Eef you fail to sign, however…well. I will subject you to ‘Lifted’ from dawn till dusk.”

Aurora was horrified. “You bastard.”

Suddenly Christophe hit her. He smacked her right buttock really, really hard. “You weel do vat I say, woman.”

“Oh! Hit me again!” she gasped, sexually. “It’s so hot!”

Christophe was more than happy to oblige. As he hit her again and again, she orgasmed repeatedly. Then he tied her up, took her up the jacksy then afterwards asked her to make him a risotto. Which she did.

“Wow,” murmured Christophe Girder. “That was fantastic.”

“Are you talking about the sex or the risotto?”

“The risotto, you needy bitch.”

That “contract”

It strikes me that one of the most implausible things about 50 Shades of Grey is that ridiculous contract. Billionaire sex psycho Christian Grey cooks up this ‘contract’ in an attempt to get Anastasia Steele to agree to be his Sub. (If, like me, you think that’s got something to do with football you are so, so wrong).

I’m no lawyer but I don’t think Spanking Agreements are legally enforceable. Can you imagine the court case? I can. I can also imagine Exhibit A and let me tell you, Reader, it’s not a pretty sight. The jurors would be in therapy for years!

Anyway. All good sense notwithstanding, I wondered if I could write a similar “contract” scene for my own erotic novel.

Here goes:

Christophe Girder handed Aurora Fox a document. It was typed on 4GSM A4 paper (double spaced) in Arial font. There were six paginated sheets. It looked professional, serious, legal.

“What’s this paper about?” said Aurora Fox, the gamine yet innocent yet bold, big breasted Bramhall ingenue who had consumed Christophe’s imagination so completely.

“Eet eez a contract, Aurora,” breathed Christophe Girder, his eyes like two smoldering pebbles in a twin pair of bottomless rockpools/sockets. “A contract zat I weesh you to sign.”

“What’s it about?” said Aurora. “What are you selling me?” She may have been innocent but holy crap, she was bold too. “Is it a timeshare?”

Christophe Girder laughed a primeval dragon laugh that sounded as if it was coming from the middle of the earth (ie somewhere very deep. Perhaps Wookey Hole? Llandudno?) “Ah, Aurora. You beguile me.” His nostrils flared and he traced a lazy finger across her filtrum. “I vant you to agree to be mine and mine alone. You see…I ‘ave very…specific needs…”

Aurora’s eyes softened. At last! She knew what he was trying to tell her. This complex, brilliant, infuriating man was confiding in her, telling her something deeply private and personal.  “I understand, Christophe,” she said, laying a supportive hand on his arm. “You’ve got Special Needs.”

“No! No!” shouted Christophe Girder. “I ‘ave specific needs. Specific! Zey are entirely different to Special.” He gripped the sides of her face in his beautiful long-fingered billionaire hands. “What I am trying to tell you, Aurora, is, in short, that I am a kinky bastard.”

Aurora gasped. She’s suspected as much when he’d shown her his secret red Punishment Room with its memory-searing Commode of Pain.

“What does this contract say then?” she said, conveniently allowing the narrative to seamlessly move on and itemise the terms of the contract in such a way that does not suspend the reader’s disbelief.

“Read eet,” murmured Christophe Girder, pouring Aurora Fox another glass of vintage champagne. “Eet eez very serious and I vant you to sign eet very murch because I really fancy you.”

Aurora flapped open the pages as though it were a white bird made of paper that symbolised not only peace but her innocence – innocence that had already been violated by Christophe Girder’s jaw-dropping Johnson. Her eyes flitted across the pages and as she did so, her eyes (just as her legs had only a few hours hence) widened. Clearly, it was a document that was asking her to be utterly Submissive to Christophe Girder’s depraved and insatiable pornographic appetite. The thought excited her, titillated her even. This shocked her as she’d always thought herself to be a bit of a prude. After all, she’d never gone topless, ‘sexted’ anyone, or joined in with that really rather inappropriate conversation the Zumba girls had had about Prince William. Heck, she even thought a love egg had something to do with the Easter Bunny. That is, before she Googled it just now.

(This is where the reader sort of gets that the following bits are in the actual contract because they’re written in a slightly different font. I admit that this part needs development).

SOFT LIMITS

Tickling

Spanking (with feather duster)

Sexual food play (NB no dairy and always consider soft furnishings during same)

Handiwork (I think we all know what this is getting at)

Fellatio (Here I have to admit that it wasn’t until 1996 that I realised this wasn’t a character from Shakespeare)

HARD LIMITS

No chains, cat o’ nine tails, nipple clamps or gynaecological instruments, please

No bum sex (of any form)

‘What goes on in the lavatory stays in the lavatory’

No Lighthouse Family CDs

Also: watching repeats of ‘Doc Martin’ is absolutely forbidden because it’s shit.

Aurora’s eyes met Christophe Girder’s. He looked wary, frightened even. She looked at him, her chin rather cockily tilted. “You dirty bugger,” she said. Christophe grabbed her and  before you could say “Pass the K-Y” they were at it like rabbits.

Now, I admit that this is sketchy. But it’s a start. It’s tricky though because I’ve got to make the contract part intriguing enough so the reader wants to find out what happens next but not so brilliant as to really annoy the reader when I conveniently drop all reference to this contract later in the story when it becomes a bit of a plot burden. Hmm. One to ponder.

Patchy access

I write this while away on holiday (Cornwall) being plagued by v patchy internet access. I was PROMISED wi-fi in my accommodation but let’s just say certain brochure promises have not been fulfilled (eg towels, a working DVD player, live ducks etc). I’m attempting to publish this while holed up in a car park in Looe, courtesy of a BT Openzone but I’ve been at it for ages and I’ll level with you, Reader, it’s really ******* starting to **** me right ******* off. (I have to keep this blog #PMSFW* for readers with tricky firewalls that won’t permit robust Anglo Saxon).

I arrived at my destination last night after a long drive. (I live in the North West, so you can imagine how I felt, come Exeter). I won’t bore you with the details of my itinerary but after a whistle stop tour of the facilities (a laundry, a pretty comprehensive recycling area and cream tea emporium) I enjoyed a brief vegetarian supper in a picturesque fishing village, and before I knew it, it was time to head back to the log cabin in which I am staying, mid-forest. Once I’d managed to drug the kids (only joking! it’s just Calpol!) I could sink into a chair (I was actually promised a modular settee) and finally had chance to fire up the Kindle.

You don’t have to be a genius to guess what I read, do you?

Yes. “Anne of Green Gables.”

Only joking! (You can tell I’ve had a half glass of Pinot this evening, can’t you? I’m in a heck of a mischievous mood!)

I just want to make it quite clear I’m reading 50 Shades of Grey in the interests of sharing my reaction to the book with my own readers. I am in no way gleaning any sexual pleasure from the experience whatsoever. Only the other day I even read it in full view of the kids while they were playing Wii Motion. (They thought I was reading a psychological thriller about a disturbed clown who liked to shoot kittens in the face; after all, as every responsible parent knows, some things are best kept from children).

I’ve just got to the bit where Christian Grey lays down the law to Anastasia Steele and gives her a pseudo legal document outlining some basic and rather eye-popping do’s and don’ts! I’ve never read anything so ridiculous in my life. I’ve not had that many (successful) relationships but the sum total of my do’s and don’ts are:

• don’t wee on the seat
• don’t make me eat Pot Noodles
• don’t make me watch Ice Truckers
• and please – and this is completely non-negotiable – absolutely no Lighthouse Family CDs

I’d like to see how far I’d have got romantically if I’d have made my partner(s) sign a contract that stated I could humiliate and debase them physically, mentally and emotionally on a whim. My God, my mother did that to my father on a daily basis for 31 years and he never signed anything.

I wonder how this would play out in my fledgling erotic tale with key protagonists Aurora Fox and Christophe Girder? I’ll have to think about that and write a similar-but-not-plagarised ‘contract’ scene.

Urgh. I’m just about to hit ‘Publish’ for the umpteenth and final time. If it doesn’t work now, I’m bloody giving up. The car park attendant’s giving me funny looks EVEN THOUGH I’ve bought a pay and display ticket. Perhaps the fact that I’m displaying the ticket on my forehead is giving him cause for alarm. I am doing this to draw attention to the TICKET so he doesn’t think I’m a cheap opportunist. Or a jilted dogger.

Later: it worked! (Obviously! You’re reading it now!) The car park attendant came over to ask me what the hell I was doing. We had a brief, formal , mutually respectful chat. It turns out even he’s read 50 Shades of Grey! I ask you! What’s the world coming to??

*this does not mean P****d Myself Soaking F*****g Wet. It means something entirely innocuous and wholesome.