Why are women sexually submissive?

Don’t worry, I’m not about to go all Mel Gibson on you.

This question, in various forms, was bandied about a lot during last year’s Fifty Shades media hysteria. It’s a question I’ve been asked my opinion on more than enough times. Usually the questioner is asking why are so many women into sexual submission as roleplay or fantasy (which would suggest the answer requires a socio-cultural analysis, and I have to put my eyeroll on standby in readiness for the chimpanzee who wants to tell me it’s ‘natural’).

Made more personal, the question becomes why is this character/are you sexually submissive (which would suggest the questioner thinks us crazy bitches need our heads examined cos we must have a history of brokenness to like that fucked-up shit).

I think it’s the wrong question to be asking. Instead, perhaps we should be asking: why is that question constantly being asked of women? It’s a question which implies there’s a problem that needs rectifying. We don’t often hear the corresponding enquiry: why are (so many) men sexually dominant? Femsub generates anxiety because too often it’s deemed to constitute a betrayal and rejection of feminism. I think most intelligent people would be able to understand that wanting to be cuffed to the bedpost and treated like a fuckslutwhore doesn’t equate to wanting to live on the bottom half of a gender-imbalanced culture. The more complex issue, and one which affects me as a writer, is how do we convey this when we’re presenting M/f to a broad audience?

I’m a woman writing about women who desire sexually dominant men; about women who own their stuff or are on a journey towards ownership. I’m writing about sex that re-enacts and often exaggerates gender norms; and at the same time, I’m subverting those gender norms by showing that women can have sexual agency and be actively, assertively desiring. Historically, that’s been the preserve of men.

EL James did us a massive wrong when she presented Grey’s non-mainstream sexuality as a consequence of an abusive past and him as freakishly ‘other’ (and so safe from tainting the mainstream); and when she depicted acceptable, ordinary female sexuality as being dead-in-the-cunt. The romantic, reactionary trope of a ‘sleeping beauty’ sexuality, where our heroine is oblivious to her submissive desires until some handsome prick-prince arrives to ‘awaken’ her kinky self is deeply problematic.

My protagonist in Thrill Seeker, Natalie Lovell, starts to explore her submissive sexuality when she’s in her late twenties. She’s been deterred from doing so previously due, in part, to a former unhealthy sexual relationship which has left her feeling uncomfortable about, and reluctant to pursue, her desires. I think this is a far more typical scenario for many of us, except it’s not usually an incident in the past that has inhibited our sexual growth but a barrage of cultural messages telling us we shouldn’t; that it’s wrong; it’s dirty; it’s twisted to want it that way. I don’t for a moment believe that, as FSOG suggests, we’re all ticking along in neutral vanilla mode until something distorts us and sends us – whoa! – kinky.

In Thrill Seeker, Natalie is sexually submissive because she is. Anyone looking for a ‘why?’ won’t find their answer. They will, however, find plenty to demonstrate the pleasure Natalie gets out of powerplay, and that ought to be reason enough.

Here’s an excerpt. And I’m very sorry: this is my third excerpt from Thrill Seeker, and once again it centres on cocksucking. I promise you, the book does contain other stuff and I do have range!

Another memory: Baxter making me confront myself in the full-length mirror in the bedroom. I was on my knees, hands cuffed behind my back, both of us naked. I’d just been sucking his cock, or rather he’d just been fucking my mouth. He once taught me a word: irrumatio. Not fellatio, where I suck his cock, but irrumatio, where he fucks my mouth. ‘Learn to love it,’ he’d growled, hands in my hair, cock driving hard enough to make me splutter.

When he withdrew, he stuffed my knickers into my mouth, feeding in the last of the fabric with two big fingers. My cheeks bulged, pink lace foaming from my lips as he turned me to meet my reflection. He held me by the hair, waggling my head in warning when I tried to look away. Black tears streaked my face, my eyes bloodshot, my skin hectic and blotched. Next to me, his cock was ramrod-stiff, gleaming with my saliva, his pubes curling damply.

‘Look at the state of you,’ he said brightly. ‘How d’you end up like this, eh? Dirty little cocksucker. You know why your panties are in your mouth, eh? Do you?’

I shook my head, grunting into cotton.

‘Because I dinnae want to hear you speak,’ he said. ‘All that mouth’s fit for is being used. Not got a dick in it? Then it’s surplus to my requirements. Now come on, suck me again. Do it!’

I grunted to indicate he needed to first remove the underwear from my mouth. My hands were tied, see? Baxter was having none of it. ‘Spit them out,’ he said. ‘Prove how much you want my dick.’

I did as told, glad to be rid of the knickers, gladder still to have Baxter gliding into my mouth again. I loved the strength in his shaft, loved to breathe in the intimacy of his pubes as he bunched my hair in his fists, pulling me close. And most of all, I loved it when he told me what to do. He knew I got off on that because I’d tried to explain it numerous times. I couldn’t say why I liked being forced to submit, only that I did; that I longed to be overtaken and reduced in this way. I didn’t so much get off on the act of submission but in being made to submit. I wanted to resist as if I hated it, the pleasure arising from the process of him doing what was necessary to push me to that place where I had either become greedy and willing or was too weak to fight back.

Does everything, I’d once wondered aloud to Baxter, have to be explained before it gets a pass? Does the nature-nurture debate need to be resolved before I’m allowed to fuck who and how I want? Didn’t gay people get asked the same question – are you born this way or made? – and discover the answer was ‘accept us for who we are, don’t pathologise and try to fix us’?

Baxter took it in his stride, not seeking justification but happy to be with someone he viewed as on a par. My kinky desires were as legitimate as his, and together we could celebrate what we relished, and make each other happy.

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Quick and Dirty Erotica from Mammoth

I had to rearrange my bookshelves recently because I have stories in quite a lot of the annual ‘best of’ Mammoth anthologies from Maxim Jakubowski, and these books are fat!

Quick and Dirty, a one-off collection of flash fiction, is similarly fat, running to 554 pages, and doesn’t he have a sexy back? I have four stories in this volume: three brand new pieces and one reprint (although its first print publication), Violet Sex, which may be familiar to long term readers.

I’m proud to say Violet Sex opens the anthology which means, since the piece is only three pages long, you can read it in its entirety on Amazon for free: I’ve always enjoyed violent sex but then John lost our letter ‘n’ and sex turned violet.

My other pieces are Fast Burn, a story about a new, destructive relationship running on fast-forward; The Wrong Woman, a gangbang abduction fantasy which is a bit meta (yes, I am obsessed with abduction and dubious consent: see Thrill Seeker for details); and probably my favourite, Mighty Real, a high-octane story about friends fucking at a funeral in which I quote both seventies disco lyrics and John Donne. I think John would be cool with that.

I wrote these short shorts as I was writing Thrill Seeker, along with short shorts for Alison Tyler‘s Sudden Sex (UK Kindle), and some super short shorts for the fabulous porn-for-women site, For The Girls. I love writing quickies, although they’re seldom quick to write. But when you’re working on a novel and living with a huge, messy project, its particularly rewarding to be able to take a break from the forward momentum of that and work in miniature; to focus on getting the language right and feel the satisfaction of actually completing a piece. In his introduction to the anthology, Maxim describes the kind of stories featured as being ‘like fires of lust caught in amber’. Nice, no?

I’ve been umming and ahing about what to excerpt but I’m going for the beginning of The Wrong Woman. Because abduction.

The Wrong Woman

‘Someone had fucked up’ went the story. He was supposed to be handsome and charming, and they should have been in a restaurant playing footsie under the table while a waiter took their order, glass and cutlery tinkling around them.

Instead, Jody was in a dingy alley with a gun to her back, her hair awry, her stockings laddered. ‘Keep walking,’ he said. ‘Look straight ahead.’

Her legs were shaking. That wasn’t in the story. Cobbles rippled like water in the pale white sheen of a street light and in her heels, she struggled on the uneven terrain like a weak-limbed foal.

‘You’ve got the wrong woman.’ Her throat was dry, her voice a rasp.

‘Don’t get cute,’ he said. ‘Here. Left here. I’ve got some friends who want to meet you.’

Around the corner, he made her stand by a broad wooden door as he tied her hands behind her back, looping rope around her wrists in a figure of eight. Brittle strips of green paint hung like lolling tongues from the wood and six small, high windows suggested a dirty, cobwebbed interior. When Jody’s hands were secured, the man heaved on a handle to roll the doors aside, the scene opening up as it might in a theatre when the curtains were raised. Before them was a cobble-floored car repair garage, its ceiling veiled by a sagging pigeon net from which crisp, brown ivy dangled like vines in a ghostly rainforest. The light was dim and the props, if you could call them that, were scanty: a heap of old tyres, two rusty cars at the rear, an armchair sprouting stuffing and various tools scattered randomly about the place. No one was in sight.

Her heels echoed on the cobbles as they walked into the centre of the garage, and she imagined the knocking of her heart was equally loud. She breathed in smells of damp, dust, oil and scorched metal. She didn’t know if the gun at her back was real but it didn’t matter. If you thought it might be, it was.

One by one, they emerged from the shadows, five muscular men in jeans and vests, all bristling with menace and swagger. They crowded around her and she was on her knees before she knew it, the cobbles harsh and cold. The blouse she’d worn for her restaurant date tore easily. A pair of clumsy hands shoved the ripped silk around her shoulders while more hands scooped her breasts from her bra and twisted her nipples. She writhed and squealed in protest.

‘You’ve got the wrong woman,’ she said again but they only laughed.

Quick and Dirty is out in the UK now (paperback and Kindle), and in the US on Kindle now, and as paperback in June. I’m also liking this new discovery: Best UK price.

I have a novel out tomorrow. I may have mentioned it.

Thrill Seeker: an excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

Liam doesn’t usually come when I’m sucking him, but on the night it started he was different. His groans were threaded with a darker note, and my throat was more open than it had ever been with him because I was thinking of someone else.

Outside, thunder edged closer, snarling above the sea. In my mind, I saw this strange, broken town, summer rain slicking its pink and gold domes, the black sky ripped by a storm. ‘Trouble’s coming,’ I might have thought. Except I didn’t. I didn’t see anything coming. Well, apart from Liam.

‘Don’t stop,’ he gasped, voice bordering on panic. I was kneeling on my futon and he grabbed my hair, not too hard because that’s not his style. He drew me onto him. I spluttered, tapped his thigh and he eased back a fraction like a gent. Then he was there again, cock nudging at my throat, and I was trying to match his urgency, wet, firm, fast. His noises, half-pained and incredulous, made desire thump in my cunt. I wanted to tip him over the edge and hear his ecstatic cries but we were going too fast for me.

I clutched his thighs, thinking, if this were Baxter Logan, I’d take him and hold him till I ran out of breath.

Liam’s groans thinned. ‘Don’t stop, don’t…’

Why think about Baxter? Was it the rowdy weather? Or was I always thinking about Baxter? Of course I was. Don’t try and kid yourself it’s any different, Nats. Most days, my memories were a low-frequency hum but on occasion, Baxter Logan returned in all his glory, dominating my thoughts.

Where are you now, you bastard? Do you ever think of me?

My hands on Liam’s hips, I steadied myself, relaxed, then eased my mouth forward, straight down the hatch. I was rewarded with a twisted cry of disbelief, as if the pleasure of being lodged in my throat were too much for him to bear. I stayed deep, relishing the calm intimacy of the act. Thunder rumbled closer. I pulled back then bobbed to and fro, my lips tight, saliva spilling along his length.

‘Oh, don’t st… oh, yes.’

For a brilliant instant, lightning filled the room. In the corner of my eye, the tall mirror propped against the wall cracked with reflected sky. A woman on her knees was sucking a lanky guy standing on a futon. Liam likes to watch; I don’t. I prefer close-ups and the focus on sensation. The sight of my own body distracts me. Still sucking, I gazed up at Liam even though my eyeballs ached. I cupped his balls, fondling their warm, slipping weight.

Liam looked down, mouth slack, face crumpling, his eyes blurred with delirium as if he weren’t quite there. His muscular torso was milk white, his pubes a tangle of dark copper filaments, his thickly-freckled arms covered with sandy hair. I focused my lips on his end, pulling hard then down again. I saw him glance at our reflection. He gripped my hair and began to thrust, using me, fucking my mouth so I was no longer the giver but the recipient.

Baxter Logan liked using my mouth that way.

Seconds later, Liam came, his body jerking, his hands scattering touches on my shoulders. I drank every drop of him and cupped his buttocks, holding him close as his shudders faded. I listened to his post-bliss moans, keeping him in my mouth until he grew twitchy. He withdrew – ah, ah – laughing at his sensitivity, then dropped to the mattress, slender limbs collapsing like a house of cards.

‘Oh man.’ He rolled backwards, flinging out an arm. ‘Sheesh. You got a world exclusive!’

I laughed and fell alongside him, nestling in the crook of his arm. His fingers strummed my back.

‘I never come like that,’ he said. ‘Fuck. Awesome. I can’t feel my knees. What are you on?’

‘Form,’ I said, proud of my achievement.

‘I’ll say. Oh, fuck. Seriously, Nats…’

He mussed my hair, lazily affectionate. We weren’t done, not by a long shot. We’d have a breather then he’d make me come or squirt or both. Then we’d fuck again, maybe come again. We’d put on a CD, have another drink, roll a joint, chat, fuck, and on we’d go until we were sated.

‘Man, oh man,’ said Liam, more to himself than to me. I reached across his body for my tumbler of red on the floor by the bed. Tumblers, never stemmed glasses for sex, especially on a futon. Puffs of colour from the fairy lights around my mirror glowed in the wine and shone in the depths of the dark, hardwood floor. As I moved, my stomach squeaked against Liam’s, both of us wet with sweat. I kissed his shoulder. It’s a good relationship. We’re friends and we fuck, and neither of us wants anything more than that. Or at least, not from each other.

We lay in silence as our breathing returned to normal. Thunder grumbled then cracked. A car alarm started pulsing in the street on the far side of the house. Rain hit the bedroom window in squally bursts. After several hot, oppressive days, the cooler air was a relief.

‘Can’t move,’ murmured Liam. ‘I think you’ve broken me.’

I laughed. ‘Do you need to move?’

Before he could answer, a huge crash punctured our mellow mood. I jumped, confused. Not thunder, not coming from the sky like the rest of the racket. A crash in the house from two floors below, kitchen by the sounds of it. Crockery? Glass? A lot of something smashed to smithereens. The window?

I scrambled off the bed, pulled a silk slip over my head then hurtled down the stairs two at a time. I heard Liam call, ‘Nats? What is it?’

I didn’t answer. My mind hopped through possibilities: a tree in the garden had been brought down, smashing the kitchen window. Or, I was being burgled. All I could think was, ‘Cat, laptop, cat, laptop.’ Desperate to protect these two most precious things, I didn’t give a thought for my safety. One glass of wine and suddenly I’m a hero.

Would Rory be scared? Would she scarper, never to be seen again? Would they steal my laptop? All my photos, emails, documents, software? My clammy hand squeaked on the wooden banister. Oh God, some of those photos. For years, I’d been meaning to password protect the dodgy stuff. I needed to back up my files too. And leave instructions for my hard drive to be wiped in the event of my untimely demise. I wasn’t ready to be murdered, wasn’t ready to be burgled. I needed to get organised first. Just give me a couple of days then do your worst.

Instead of my life, jpegs of Baxter flashed before my eyes. So many beautiful, filthy images – his thighs, his cock, his chest, his arms, his cock by my mouth, his cock in my cunt – but rarely any pictures of his face. I should have known, shouldn’t I? ‘Not my face, hen. You know how shy I am.’ This from a man who didn’t have a shy bone in his body.

Mine is a tall, skinny townhouse built in the slope of Old Saltbourne. People say I’m lucky to own such a lovely house but if they knew the down payment came from money left to me by my father, they might not be so envious. I hoped I wasn’t about to add a second early death to the family tree. I rounded the first flight of stairs and hurried across the living room where our discarded clothes were dotted like stepping stones. Rory was curled on Liam’s jeans, a black and white ball of fluff raising her head in mild concern. She rarely moves except for food. I scuttled past her and braced myself against the lumpy stone wall as I turned onto the stairs leading to the lower floor.

‘Liam!’ I called, letting the world and its mad axemen know I wasn’t alone. At the top of the stairs, I felt fresh air blasting inwards, cooling my shins. Halfway down, I saw curtains at the kitchen window flapping softly, gingham dancing and twisting. I stalled, suddenly rational. Someone might be there, waiting for me. Foolish to come charging down like this, a small, slightly drunk woman, unarmed, half-dressed.

I took the steps slowly, a pulse throbbing in my neck. How would Liam shape up if I were attacked? He certainly had the muscle and knuckle to land someone a hefty blow. Plus, out in the woods, he killed rabbits with his bare hands and never went anywhere without a penknife. He might be able to save me, assuming he wasn’t too stoned and blowjobbed to stand.

I took another step down. Penknife? What good’s a penknife against a burglar, a rapist, a homicidal maniac?

Until then, I’d always felt safe in my own home, the biggest threat to my peace an over-active imagination, easily roused by Saltbourne’s history of smugglers, secret tunnels and fishermen lost at sea. Real danger didn’t seem part of my life except, sometimes, when I walked through New Town late at night, the pedestrianised streets, garish red brick, modern murals and glass-fronted shops of Castlegate Plaza conspiring to create an unease rooted in the hollowness of urban planning. Old Town, with its picturesque alleys, worn steps, salmon pink domes, and haphazard streets overlooked by cliff-top castle ruins, was a world apart.

My fingers inched over the wall’s rough stone as I descended to the kitchen. I heard nothing, saw no shadows shifting. I crept down the final few steps then switched on the light. Scanning the room, I tried to make sense of the mess. Shards of glass sparkled on the drainer of the sink. The windows were intact. No one was here. One window was open, its drooping metal handle scraping against the outside wall, hinges banging in the clattering rain. The damp gingham curtains fluttered in the breeze, ditsy flags of surrender. A vase. My glass vase on the windowsill had smashed. A wine glass too by the looks of it. The back door was ajar. My heart was thumping, my throat parched.

Liam’s feet banged on first flight of stairs. ‘I’m coming, you OK?’

On the kitchen table, as if waiting to be filed, was a sheet of A4 paper in a clear, plastic poly pocket. It wasn’t mine. I snatched it up. Across the page, in glued lettering cut from newspapers, were the words: CLOSER THAN YOU KNOW.

My hands shook. My legs seemed to vanish from under me. Coldness slid down my face while sweat pinched under my arms. I was dizzy, weak, yet somehow, I was still upright.

I remembered why Baxter Logan had been on my mind. Because I could see I was chasing sex and danger, taking stupid risks to try and heal the past.

I glanced at the back door, fearing the man would burst back in. Or was he in the spare room, behind the closed door? I swung around. No, not in there. Dirty, wet footprints reached the table and no further.

I tried to moisten my lips but my tongue had no power. ‘Nats?’ Liam was at the top of the kitchen stairs. I tugged open the cutlery drawer, stuffed the note inside, and slammed it shut. I didn’t want to worry him, and anyway, he wouldn’t understand.

‘What happened?’ Liam was at the foot of the stairs, looking as if he’d just run half a marathon. He was naked, no pocket for a penknife.

I took four wobbly steps to the back door and opened it fully. Rain sluiced down, a hard, glittery fall against the backdrop of dark shrubbery and overhanging trees. Light from the house glinted on plant pots, wet stone and on my cast iron chairs, huddled around the barbecue. Cool droplets tickled my toes and night air curled around my ankles.

‘I think someone’s in the garden,’ I said.

*

Published 9th May, 2013, paperback and ebook

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Thrill Seeker: a seaside excerpt

I’m over at Justine Elyot’s blog today discussing the influence of the seaside on my writing as part of her fascinating Briterotica series.

Below is a seasidey excerpt from my forthcoming Black Lace novel, Thrill Seeker (published 9th May in the UK and on Kindle generally). This is the first excerpt I’ve revealed to the internet, so please be gentle!

Taken from Chapter Three, the scene is a flashback in which my narrator, Natalie, recalls having sex on the beach at night with Baxter Logan, the man who later betrays her.

This is our first significant introduction to Baxter Logan, and oh, how I adore him! He turned out to be one of the characters I’ve most enjoyed writing in my career to date.

Thrill Seeker is set in Saltbourne, a fictional seaside town, and tells the story of Natalie Lovell who gets into all sorts of trouble when she shares a kidnap fantasy with a stranger she meets online. But of course, it’s more complicated than that, and Baxter Logan is part of her baggage.

Chapter Three

The derelict fishing quarter on the east beach at Saltbourne used to be my favourite place for late night, al fresco sex.

Once, Baxter and I fucked in the scoop of a broken boat, its wooden sides yellow and ravaged like an old banana. No, that’s not right. Baxter fucked me. He always fucked me. Sex wasn’t something we did together. He would act as if he were inflicting it on me and I’d let him because that’s how we rolled.

That night with Baxter was our first time at the beach. The moon was low and large, silvering the sea, and the tide was high. Waves crashed on the shore, shingle clattering in the drag. You could make out the whirrs and squeals of the funfair near the west beach, a jangle of music seeping into the dark, the rides’ gaudy lights spinning, flashing and swooping by the disused pier. In contrast, the east beach around us was apocalyptically still, a halted world of rusting winches, mouldering shacks, abandoned lobster pots, rotting rope and scattered, dead boats. The old net houses, tall, gaunt sheds with steep roofs and tar-black, weatherboarded walls, loomed over the wreckage like a creepy, elongated town in a fairy tale.

The broken boat was resting on a slant. Baxter had me face-forward over the plank of a narrow seat, his fist wound in my hair. He made my spine dip, my arse lifting towards to him, and my neck ached. I gripped the edge of the boat, struggling to keep my cries down as he fucked me like a man possessed.

‘See what you make me do,’ he accused, his Dunfermline accent rolling through gritted teeth. ‘Fucking you in this nasty place, like a whore. A greedy little whore. Why d’you do it, hen? Why d’you make me fuck you like this, eh?’

The boat creaked and I feared it might break, its wood too brittle and splintered to take us. Baxter slammed relentlessly, his cock thumping at my core. He released my hair and hooked me around the waist, holding me steady as he powered on, his breath fast, his grunts spittle-moist and urgent. He was a hefty man with crude hands, his broad chest tangled with dark hair, his thighs as big as a warrior’s. He was a few pounds overweight but proportionate so the extra layer merely added to his bulk and strength. Besides, I like a man with padding.

To look at him, sturdy in a suit, hair rumpled, jaw unshaven, his tie permanently askew, you wouldn’t believe he could move with such grace and ease; wouldn’t believe how his pelvis could undulate when he lingered over a slow, cruel fuck; wouldn’t believe how fast he could move in the sack. But then to look at him, you’d never guess he was as broken as the boats around us, a big, angry, soft-hearted Scot with a weakness for women and whisky.

I loved him for a year and now I wish I’d never met him.

That night on the beach is etched in my memory as one of our high points, later to became a low because it was laced with betrayal. At the time, drunk on romance, I’d seen the desolate beauty of the fishing quarter as an environmental echo of Baxter. He was all around me, his masculinity echoing in the remnants of this coastal industry, in the coils of thick rope, the heavy chains and dark, dangerous secrets of the sea.

‘C’mere, you wee bitch,’ he urged, snatching himself from me. ‘Suck my dick. Come on, jump to it.’

He maneuvered me into place, dragging me by my hair. I complained, resisting him because it was too dark to see and the boat was grotty. I wanted to know where I was putting my hands, what I was kneeling on. Was it clean, safe? Would we break the boat and end up in a heap of matchwood? But Baxter didn’t care about niceties and he knew, at heart, neither did I.

I stumbled towards him on all fours. I was wearing cute, blue, hold-up stockings with a daisy detail on the ankle. Not so cute now. Baxter’s thighs were bound with a confusion of clothing and his cock was hard enough to cut diamonds. For a brief moment, moonlight glossed his tip, adding a pearly pink sheen to the flushed violet marbling. The veins on his shaft were thick like those ropes, flowing with blue mysteries like the sea. He gripped himself, holding steady as he aimed for my mouth, pulling me on to him.

Had anyone been watching they might have wondered if I were consenting to this. But I was, very much so. Baxter’s bossiness turned me on like nothing else. I saw his cock as him condensed, full of rage but exposed and vulnerable too. At that moment, I couldn’t differentiate between wanting the man and wanting the cock. I wanted him and it to overwhelm me. Then I could disappear into him, like disappearing into the vastness of the black, boundless night. That’s what I craved: the oblivion of dissolution, the intoxicating peace I found in the white heat, white light of lust, sweat and surrender.

*

My publishers say: “A sexy and controversial erotic thriller – Fifty Shades Darker than E L James and Sylvia Day.”

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Behind Closed Doors with Justine Elyot

I have a guest! Quick, put the kettle on! It’s the wonderful and insanely-prolific, Justine Elyot, here to tell us about her latest release.

Many thanks to Kristina for inviting me here to talk about my Kinky Wife. I can’t wait to host (and read all about) her Thrill Seeker later in the year – and I’m sure you feel the same. In the meantime, you’ll have to put up with me.

I’m the opposite of a curtain twitcher. I rarely peek out to see what’s going on in the street outside. With a DVD collection like mine, why would I? Give me a street of identical suburban houses to walk along, though – preferably at twilight, just before the blinds are drawn – and my eyes will do that guilty sideways flick every few paces. What am I hoping to see? I couldn’t really say. I like the idea that anything could be happening, or a whole row of anythings, one by one, all the way to the corner of the street.

Now that we have Google Streetview, I don’t even have to leave my house to do this. I can reverse-curtain-twitch from the comfort of my own home. Every front door closes on its own story – and my latest book is an eye through the keyhole of one.

Here’s the blurb:

Is it possible to be a confident twenty-first century woman and submit to your lover?

It’s difficult, as a modern woman, to admit that you want your lover to punish you. Not just a fun spanking in the bedroom – real punishment.

Philippa knows what she wants. She wants her police officer husband to take her in hand.

But how do you ask your lover to hurt you? And, if they’re willing, how do you make sure that being taken in hand doesn’t get out of hand?

Philippa and Dan explore the secret world of Domestic Discipline. Perhaps it will suit them, perhaps it won’t. But they mean to find out, one way or the other.

And an excerpt, if you’d like one:

Be careful what you wish for.

Great advice, but impossible to follow. Wishes come unbidden and desires can’t be quelled. I wished for it, I got it. I really, really got it.

I was woken with a kiss.

“Sleeping beauty,” he said.

The room was still dark and my alarm hadn’t gone off.

“Wass time?” I tried to come to, but everything was blurred and the bed felt like a place I wanted to stay in for a lot longer.

“Early,” he said. “I thought we’d get up an hour earlier. We’ve both got work today, and I want to sort a few things out while they’re still fresh in our minds.”

Something about the way he said the words sent a warning pang right down to my solar plexus. Actually, it went a bit lower than that. I squinted at him through one eye.

He was sitting up in bed, looking ahead, his face perfectly grave. When he caught my glance, he raised an eyebrow, unsmiling.

If he was playing a role, he was doing it very convincingly.

I was scared of him. Actually scared.

But it was exhilarating at the same time.

“You mean…about last night?” I said.

“Yes, I do. We have issues to address, Pip. Go and shower and brush your teeth and whatnot and then I want you straight back in here in your pyjamas. Understood?”

I think he wanted me to say ‘Yes, Sir’ but I didn’t give him that satisfaction. Instead, I said, “Are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m joking, Philippa?”

Oh, bloody hell, Philippa.

It was enough to send me out of bed and into the bathroom without another word.

Under the hot shower jets I woke up properly, the citrussy scent of my shampoo acting like a stimulant to my senses. I put my hand on my bottom and felt the water stream over it. What sort of state might that be in by the time he was finished with me?

I pressed my thighs together and squirmed, feeling hot and breathless at the thought. I was going to be punished. Actually punished for my bad behaviour, and I had never looked forward to anything more. I didn’t care how much it was going to hurt – I hoped it would hurt a lot and I’d have to beg him to stop.

I washed myself carefully, getting every inch of myself as fresh and soft as I could, paying special attention to my bum. I wanted it to look good over his lap, or wherever he was going to put me. If the poor man had to do this terrible thing to me, the least he deserved was a nice view.

I towelled myself dry, scrubbed my teeth and put my pyjamas back on. They were thin cotton summer pyjamas – just plain white shorts and a vest. The material wouldn’t offer much protection, even if I was allowed to keep them on.

Allowed. The word made me cross my arms over my chest and shiver. I was going to be subject to Dan’s authority. Whatever he said in the next hour went. I wondered how naturally obedience would come to me.

Only one way to find out.

***

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