As Ferris Bueller once said: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Or, in my corruption of that quote, Life can bowl you over and leave you flat on the road. This month has been rather like that: a lot happening, most of it overwhelming in both positive and negative ways.
Last month I mused on my Epic Fantasy novel, the one with dragons, and I promised to regale you with other random musings. Given the busy-ness of this month, I've almost missed my chance to keep a perfect record of one blog a month. But as I work on my latest novel, a post-apocalyptic tale of an [adult] boy and his [young] mother and a [heirloom] tuba, I'm reminded of another older-woman/younger-man story.
Today I celebrate my first novel published, then published again, AFTER ILIUM, in which a young college graduate named Alex tours Greece and Turkey, especially the ruins of ancient Troy, also known as Ilium. He's a History major, after all. Also naive, innocent, idealistic, and romantic - four strikes against him.
The thing I remember most about this novella filled into novel status is the sex scene. I think I probably should have won an award for Most Overwritten Sex Scene. But I assure you the effect was entirely intentional - not simply a case of an undisciplined writer running off with the thesaurus. As everything is described from the point of view of this young, inexperienced lad in a tryst with an older woman, it seems appropriate to wax poetic in his interpretation of the acts proffered.
After meeting on a cruise ship and suffering an awkward seduction, the woman named Elena accepts him - he might be amusing - and when they have the opportunity in a hotel she welcomes Alex into his first real sexual encounter:
“Shhhh,” Eléna whispered. She
pulled him back onto the bed. “Let me enjoy you.”
He thought then that he was about
to go sailing on a wild, stormy ocean. No telling what would happen! He
expelled a big breath, freeing his anxiety, and the woman knew it was time to raise
the anchor.
She guided him on a tour of her
body, and he was willing to explore each port of entry, languishing there until
she called him to continue sailing her fragrant seas. She invited him to climb
her sacred hills and navigate himself into position so she could entertain him
with all of the sweet delights from her bag of tricks. He found there a
treasure trove of new sensations forced upon him. She coaxed him onward with sweet
whispered words and dainty nibbles, and they felt the bed shaking, much like
the swaying of the ship—just as ancient Helen and Paris must have felt as the
two of them set sail for Troy, he imagined—now rocking them into a sacred
rhythm, as her fingers raked his back and shoulders, as he willingly stretched
then confidently pushed and forcefully strained and, with enraged power,
released the iron gate to the gushing flood of life: all the books, all the
classes, all the exams, all the rules of his parents and the stupidity of his
fraternity brothers, and the church and the importance of perfect teeth and the
essays for scholarships, and all the strict years and months and weeks of
frustration and being a good little boy!—launching
all at once into the deep, deep well of memories, lost forever in a swirling
instant of naked, humbling ecstasy. She waited, shaking, until the memory had
evaporated and he breathed once more, feeling the tension in his body flee in
terror.
He continued collecting souvenirs
as she directed him southward, showing him a lush garden of delicious, juicy
fruit to sample, even daring him to taste the puckered kumquat. The festive banquet
of Eden spread before him! She sighed in pleasure, like the wind in the sails,
and encouraged him to gather all the treasures that he could. He responded by
lapping furiously at the fountain of youth, growing not younger but older,
gaining maturity. And when he feared he might finally be satiated, she called
for him to return to port, to push hard into the harbor until his vessel was
fully docked and his wares completely unloaded.
In the end, she was satisfied far
more than she had expected to be, and much more than she had been for many
years of married life. He listened to her confession as though it were a
siren’s song. She had nearly forgotten how wonderful such a vacation trip could
possibly be. She lovingly kissed her captain for what seemed endless days and
weeks, and thanked him sincerely for the voyage. And he, spiritually exhausted
and morally bankrupt beyond reason, reluctantly surrendered into her gentle
hands his last ounce of gold.
However, the scene has always bothered me. Most likely, I worried what my mother might say about it. Scandalous, indeed. She was so proud, however, that she told all her church friends to read it. That would make it a bestseller for certain! Anyway, no complaints, no rough feedback. I imagined well-read folks would take exception with the lavish description, calling it pretentious, overwrought, or silly - it is silly, I'll admit, but for a purpose.
At any rate, that was long ago in publishing time, but AFTER ILIUM still exists if you wish to read more of Alex's great adventure wooing Elena then losing her, then fighting his way back to her only to realize the catastrophic truth about the entire situation - a young man's best lesson.
I continue writing on my work-in-progress, POST, the apocalyptic story mentioned above. There has not yet been any need yet to write a sex scene, but some pre-pandemic incidents have been referred to in conversations. I know what's coming later in the book. Times are tough in an apocalypse, you know.
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Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.
