All Comments on 'The Gauntlet Pt. 03'

A stupid plan

I like how the story is progressing, and I thought it was smoothly written and very readable. I like slow seduction stories.

However, it's difficult to reconcile a naive wife who has been taught that sexual pleasure is a purely male thing which women are required to provide and not experience themselves with some of the behaviours and feelings Marguerite is described here as experiencing. It just didn't quite seem right in the earlier parts. (OK in the latter part with Jean after all the earlier teasing by Jaques, but somehow not back then.)

At one level she comes across as naive and inexperienced, but then she seems more experienced. Is oral sex something that was common back then? It wasn't common in my circle in my naive younger days exploring sex (end of the fifties). Would it have been so in mediaeval times?

I do think the idea of a woman feeling her womb getting damp, and of a cock entering the womb, is really going a bit far. It's bad enough having the gynaecologist poking things in there after a dilation, without having husbands (or or other men) poking their cocks in there without dilation. Let's just leave them in the vagina, OK? That's far enough in to do the trick.

Lue

I did not mean to imply "uterus" when I used the term "womb".

I was trying to use a word for vagina that would have been more understandable to Marguerite. "Womanhood" was too lame. "Vagina" far too modern and technical. "Pussy" would not have been used. "Cunt" was actually used in antiquity, as we have numerous references to both cock and cunt in early English. but, they are French. Plus, cunt has such a vulgar connotation that Infelt it would have been inappropriate to use that term for Marguerite. So, I chose a word to describe the female genitalia of "womb". I was trying to use it in a naive way, generalizing the region. Marguerite does not know what a clitoris is. She doesn't know what labia are. She doesn't know what a cervix or uterus is. To her, in 1385, it's all the womb.

If you can think of a better word for it, I'll use it.

I also struggled with the term labia and lips. I referred to them as fleshy folds.

Regarding oral sex. Oral sex has been referenced in French erotic literature from the Middle Ages, so it was not unknown. Plus, in part 1, Marguerite naively asked Jean, " do you want me to put it in my mouth again" (or something like that ) because she was frying to please her husband. She is learning about sex as the story progresses.

Let's just say that Jean was never much of a "lover" He was a proceeator. He had sex to make babies, pleasure was secondary and his wife's pleasure never was considered. He was not an asshole, that's just how he thought it was done.

Jacques, on the other hand was into sex purely for pleasure, and was vastly more experienced than Jean. He learned nearly on how women can enjoy sex and how to give them pleasure. He was active in the decadent and erotic lifestyles of Paris.

So you have Jean the warrior and Jacques the lover. Caught in the middle is naive, inexperienced Marguerte who just had the first orgasm of her life.

And she wants more.

KB

If Jean is the experienced fighter and Jacques is the lover, then when the inevitable reckoning comes, I have to bet on Jean. Hope it comes soon, but not too soon as I am enjoying your story.

Describing sexual activity and making it sound erotic is difficult enough without the added difficulty of doing it as would sound appropriate for mediaeval times.

It seems to be considered reasonably erotic these days to use anatomically correct terms, so long as it's not over-done. Not too long ago this was considered too stilted. On the other hand, there are those of us who dislike common slang terms (and even more so with uncommon slang terms) when they are over-used.

I have tried, and other authors have been more successful, in using descriptions of the activity without using words to describe the genitalia at all. But even this can only go so far. I tend now to use anatomical terms in the narrative and common terms in dialogue.

Fortunately (at least, I find it so) getting there is actually more erotic than achieving the goal, so genitalia don't come into it until later. It would appear that your anti-hero is determined to put a fair bit of effort into seducing our naive heroine so I hope that she doesn't submit too easily, despite its apparent inevitability. If he's as confident and as good at it as you've had him say he is, she should make him work for it.

I still find Susan B's story 'Eyes Wide Open' to be the most erotic that I have read. Most of the story is spent getting there, and only at the end is the goal achieved.

Lue

look for it in a few days