Toy Soldier Pt. 01

He was on his knees straddling her, his fist cocked in warning. Pinned to the floor, tiny under him she tried a futile push then relaxed in defeat as he tore open her shirt, the buttons raining down like hail. Then her pants and underwear came off, fast, one motion and a moment later his.

He wasn't a natural at this, wasn't into it — wasn't hard. He was searching her face wondering if he had gone too far or not far enough. She gave nothing away except the excitement in her pretty grey eyes that shone as he stripped off his t-shirt revealing what he tried not to conceal, a deep-tanned, gym-built physique like the one's on the covers of the romance novels that were organized by theme in the three bookcases in her reading room.

Would a rapist risk it? He had little choice. He edged forward, his limp dick belying her excitement. He tapped it against her chin, her nose, her cheek while gauging her reaction — the slightest protest would cause a change of plans. It was the tap to her lips that got the moan, got the mouth to open, got the chest to swell, the chest with the stiff nipples evident under the broken bra, now like a scarf around her neck.

The sucking was ravenous, so convincing he marvelled at how hard he got, the pretty aging housewife was transported to another place, another time when this would have been voluntary, a Saturday night in a car, a motel room or her favourite place, her parent's bed.

There should be no joy in rape. He pulled it from her mouth, pulled apart the remains of the bra, stuck two fingers in her mouth which she sucked greedily as he did, one nipple then the other, squeezing the breasts roughly as she tried to devour his fingers.

In real rapes you don't slide in on a wet current of desire, in real rapes the horror isn't imagined but enduring. The impaling was fast and furious. He left her breast, grabbed under her thighs, rolled her up and went in in a rage of anger and power, carefully calibrated for the reaction.

Rag doll surrender, total obedience, compliance, arms outstretched like the legs — pinned by a cock to the floor, hard, harder, hardest, the cries internal, the memory of past things, the orgasm in the noise, on the face, in the body now wasted, a resting place for his limp dick glistening with her now dead exuberance.

The grey eyes were shut, the pretty mouth sealed — the slap caught him by surprise. He jumped off her, turned her over and took her from behind, the pity for her long gone.

I laughed when I skimmed my draft. Rape scenes, I've read, are a popular porn fantasy with women. Rape isn't funny but giving a rape fantasy to the most popular, most pleasant woman in the office is, sort of. But not really, so I quickly turned the page and changed the tone.

She greeted everyone in the place like she greeted everyone in the office, with genuine pleasure, cheerfulness, endearing herself to all, all of whom were either undressing, or already undressed, sitting, standing, lying, talking unselfconsciously. She was wearing a soft white leather glove on her left hand to mitigate trauma as much to hide the angry red scaling. They all knew, of course and they knew her breasts which sag deliciously, swaying with any movement. She didn't have a favourite here and didn't really have any un-favourites, everyone had something to offer and everyone was more than willing to offer it.

"Why do you need it?" Her husband asked. It wasn't the first time he had asked that question.

"I don't, it's just fun." She had grabbed the keys from the bowl on the table by the door, her mood broken. It was just a 10 minute drive but she took a long way there to mull the question and to get away from a husband who would never understand.

But it was a good question, one that she had steadfastly avoided asking herself.

There are the obvious reasons why I like the group fuck: I like sex; I like my body; I like rubbing it against other bodies; I like to see people trying to be natural when they aren't; I like to see them trying to be un-natural when they can't — like the first and only time he came with me maybe 20 years ago soon after we were married.

But that wasn't his operative word, it wasn't like it had been need to him. Ask me why I like it and I could go on forever. But need? Did I need it?

It's expression, we have had this talk before. Some people express themselves through words, art, athletics, in any of hundreds of ways. This was my forum, business was his, he was good at it, I never asked him to justify why he was essentially over-powering the weak to profit from them. I never questioned his morality which, in my heart of hearts, I hold in contempt. Why should he question mine?

Settling between two naked bodies for intended consequences is the single most soothing moment of my week. I never check out the bodies first, I look only for the available space then settled in intending to give every bit as much as I will get — that is a point of pride for me, particularly now that I'm older, to maintain the hard-won reputation of being always up for all occasions.

"How you doing, Jake." I rubbed his thigh, warmly in welcome.

"Not good."

"No?"

"My fucking wife, it's always my fucking wife ... you've met her."

"And like her a lot so go easy on her."

"Ya, well I love her but Jesus Christ."

"What?"

"We've got these two dogs, right ... SHE has these two dogs ... small, yappy things. Any time anyone gets to within ten feet of our door they go ballistic ... they won't stop."

"So you're blaming your wife."

"Door bells set them off. I can be sitting there working or watching television and all of the sudden the goddam dogs go bullshit. I'm up hollering at them so is she ... to no effect."

"It's the doorbell?"

"They thinks it's the doorbell but it isn't, it's her fucking Whatsup app. She has a fucking doorbell as a ring tone, it set them off every time she gets a message and as they're barking at what they think is the fucking door we're barking at them."

I laughed as I was meant to and relaxed as he brought a nipple up to his lips as Adrian Brown ran her wet tongue across my belly then curled between my legs .

We had all been young once, young and virile and energetic and maybe a little bit show-off-y. Those days were long gone. We are all just familiar now, familiar with each other pretty much only in this setting, 8 to 10 of us together au natural in the comfortable basement recreation room of our dear leader's house.

Need, yes, there is need here, real need, visceral need, loneliness-dispelling need: miss once, OK, something's up; miss twice and you get phone calls, lots of them. You alright?

A lot of us, maybe half of us, are tethered to normality by a tenuous thread strengthened by this group — we never miss, take this away from us and we'd fall into a black hole of despair. Adrian Brown is one, I can see and often feel her physically charging throughout the evening, sucking nourishment from cocks and pussies like they offered vital nutrients. She is always sullen upon arrival, enlivened when she leaves, a once pretty girl who has become embittered by the act of living, her only respite three hours or so every Wednesday night.

I'm in the other half, the half who has it together, the confident half but the despair is still a common denominator. Where the one half needs the people, my half needs the sex. Needs, yes ... I think needs.

We're more complex, we don't just settle between legs and hang out, we are more hungry than that, more into teasing and taunting and challenging, probing our half while the pilot fish feed on us.

Arnold for instant, he with the dotty wife, a physically unattractive man but insatiable in his needs and advertising it.

When I caress Adrian's hair, she looks up and smiles at me and then a mouth finds mine, both breasts get occupied, I'm on full body charge that will energize me to go seeking cocks and cunts and assholes to debase myself to the full slut I know I am and want to be.

What are the chances? You never know ... but probably not. What do I know for sure? She dresses well, she is probably vain. She is not shy with her cleavage, which I equate with sexiness. She is effusive in behaviour which says to me she is needy. She talks and acts younger than her years which makes for an easy scenario.

He's like a little puppy when he arrives at my back door, he used to look furtively around, nervous like he was about to rob a bank. Not any more, fuck 'em he is saying, his body language, anyway, but he would never say that in words, never swear and his confidence is gone the moment I let him through the door.

The coke is cold and ready for him in the spare bedroom. He needs it, his mouth is as dry as his penis is erect. It's the fourth time. I let him look at me while he drinks, let him drink me in. I've done my best with what I have, a tight-fitting, almost translucent t-shirt with my most form enhancing bra showing a youth that is no longer mine. My skirt is short enough for a cheer leader whose behaviour I am trying to model.

When he puts the glass down I hold my hands out. He comes like a child to his mummy, an ungainly child, a needful mummy. I don't need to deflect his kisses, my mouth is the last of his interests, which are two ... three, his hand go cautiously to one as I sit down on the bed.

It is wrong and risky and silly, the three reasons why I want it to happen.

I lay back as I did for my husband in the early years when his fascination still motivated. It was like this at first, a mystery revealed, slowly, to the eyes, to the touch, to the tongue. That mattered. That has been lost. That is what I am resurrecting, the innocence, the avidity, the mystery of it all — recapturing a past thing. Is it so wrong?

He knows what to do now, knows what he wants, where it is, knows that I won't stop him. His face is pressed to my breast when his fingers go under my shirt, knows to position himself so I can get to his belt, his button, his zipper which I go to slowly, deliberately slowly because when I touch him it will be over, at least for the moment.

I am again an object of discovery, that is my need ... a return to the original sin my mother had warned me about and warned me and warned me, my father, too. This good girl obliged and obliged and obliged until I could oblige no more and made the admission ... in a cabin on a lake in the woods with friends and I came out with a mass laying on of hands, my arrival a celebration.

I've never figured it out. I never will. The denial was purity, innocence, simplicity; the act, the opposite ... oh, that that was all it was.

Shame, the delicious elixir that fills me with humiliation, the shame that imbues me with guilt and lust and a return to the cabin with all the eyes, all the fingers, all the cocks, the pain as exciting as the danger.

One man now, a boy frantic for discovery. It is enough. I'm pathetic, I know, but my blood flows hot, my senses cry out — I'm an offering accepted.

He slobbers on my breast, the fear gone, his mouth now wet with desire. My skirt is up, his fingers fumble between my legs and I am enveloped in the shame and humility that has been building and building and building since I called him — even upon physical release it will linger for days.

I will tell him about it, my husband, I will describe it in detail. His disgust with me is my ultimate goal, my climax.

Imbue, an odd word, I don't ever remember writing before. I looked it up: Latin for moisture ... as imbued with sexual excitement.

I don't think I have Margot Mallory right.

When you write porn you are, to an extend, writing about yourself, the self you know, or the self you want, or the self you are discovering, or the self you wish to be or wish to abrogate.

For a writer, the beauty of erotica is that it's basically a playground with no rules, at least there are no rules for what arrives on the page, there might be rules for where those pages go. But not for me because my pages go only into a drawer or a file in my computer.

The point is that in some respects erotica is autobiographical so in Margot I am imbuing her with some of myself, the self I am, want to be or want not to be.

As I've said, Margot is who I'd like to be but never will be, can be. I think I'm having a hard time with her because, subliminally, I'm trying to take her down a peg or four — I'm jealous of her, of course. I know that and I know it impacts on the way I get her down on the page. I make another try ... for me, not for her! I want to get over myself.

The downside of writing about others is that you become more aware of yourself, more critically aware, you have to be because you're pulling at so much of yourself to try to understand them. Someone's attributes have to flow from your deficiencies, that's just the way it is — you probably wouldn't think it's much of an attribute if your have that attribute, too.

I've made the point that writing erotica is relatively easy because it's such a small canvas on which a subject meets somebody, has sex in some hopefully interesting way, with some usually positive consequence. Basically, erotica is some variant of boy meets girl. If that is a relative easy challenge for a writer, how much easier is it when the writer is the definition of innocuous? In effect, lacking definition, the author is free to go anywhere her imagination can take her. My point is there is no bias, no tug towards power plays, same-sex insistence, sadomasochism or one of the fetishes, basically, with no definite personality you don't have the centrifugal forces normal to most so you are free to go anywhere you can force your imagination to take you.

I believe this but there is one major caveat. You are who you are ... physically. If you're ugly, your world experience is a lot different than if you are attractive. That's why I'm having a difficult time with Margot Mallory, she is everything I'm not so writing about her all depends on my imagination and in her case my imagination is coloured by the one veniality that is a killer to the writer: jealousy. Jealousy is all-consuming.

If Margot Mallory was a piece of cheese she would be a delicate shaving of tangy orange-white on a texture cracker garnished with a sprig of basil with a pimentoed olive near by. I am a block of cheddar, big ass, big breasts on an otherwise slight body with a head that even to me looks like it has been topped by a cheap wig that someone would get if he planned to rob a bank and wanted a prominent disguise. It's what used to be called a page-boy — it's the only way my hair will cooperate, and it does so insistently, I wake up with it like this. My face might have been cute if it wasn't formed by the same genetic destiny as my ass and breasts, worse, it hints at what might have been so I can see pity in some eyes.

But it is what it is and I am what I am, I make do because that's what you do, don't you? I don't reflect on it, don't let it bother me, I just get on with it ... by turning inward to force from my imagination a life far more interesting than anything I could live. But occasionally my reality intervenes to shape my fiction, like Margot Mallory is experiencing as a result of my jealousy.

I live in fourteen rooms of gloom and one that is bright and cheerful, my writing room where I spend all my waking hours in the place cohabiting with my characters. It should be a lonely here but it isn't ... because of them. At any given moment one of them is either capturing, taxing or frustrating my imagination, usually in a pursuit I know nothing about so much of my time is spent researching. I have learned it can be fun.

An example. In erotica the characters, obviously, must be sexually interesting, not just interested in sex. But let me deal with both of these right away.

Interested in sex. The word interested can mean many things: curious, fascinated, concerned, keen, engrossed, excited, engaged — a writer always has a thesaurus nearby. We're talking degree here as in a little interested, to a whole lot of interested, to obsessively interested.

So, obviously, to get into an erotic story a character has to be at least somewhat interested in sex. Erotic stories are usually about the transition of sexual interest, either intensifying or diminishing: the nymphomaniac who finds true love with an older, gentle man; the self-isolating shut-in who comes alive when the pizza boy arrives. The point is, if you haven't got an interest in sex you're never going to make it as a character in an erotic novel, except as an example of how not to do things.

So that's interested in sex. Sexually interesting is another matter entirely. We've all been biologically triggered to want sex, we all aren't swinging from chandeliers.

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too is why someone is sexually interesting. It's a two-sided coin, how we project our sexuality and how our sexuality is perceived by others — we might find it in our selves to swoon at our own image in a mirror and then get nothing at the party we dressed up for.

This brings me back to research. Being interested in sex is a given in erotica, but what makes people sexually interesting? Again, that is serendipitous, it can be anything — in the way that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What a writer has to do is to try to make her case credibly. Not every reader is turned on by a bouncing breast, a hint of thigh, the wiggle of an ass. The writer has to use short cuts.

There is no better short cut than underwear, female underwear, the multi-billion dollar industry. Underwear is like a prop in the story, you throw in panties here, a bra there to sustain sexual interest in the story. Women's underwear and lingerie are metaphors like no others and that's the problem, there are no other handy sexual metaphors to sustain a good erotic story, it's odd but there aren't any others. It would be nice if shoes translated as well to men as they do to women, but they don't and nothing else does either, not scarves, not belt buckles, not anything that I can think of so without a pallet filled with metaphors to sustain sexual interest you have to go to deliberate actions and what is deliberate action but ... wait for it. Fetishes. A fetish is typically behaviour someone cannot get sexually aroused without. There are dozens of them, look them up, I have. That's research. The trouble is, it's one thing to know what something is, it's quite another to understand how it works and be able to relate to it.

Enter erotica. Giving one of your characters a fetish forces you, the author, to think the fetish through, it forces you to relate to it, to try to understand it. Peeing on somebody may, on the face of it, hold no sexual interest to you but putting your character into a position where she might get aroused by it makes you, the author, think about peeing, golden showers, in a whole different way. Maybe being a voyeur is repellant to you but working through the psychology of it with your character is bringing you a lot closer to an understanding of it.

So that's what's happening in my bright, cheerful writing room: I'm finding ways to place, position, drop, display panties and bras while probing imaginative ways to arouse my characters in ways that can be entirely new to me. It can be arousing.

Sue May Chong is a refined looking Chinese woman with wonderful skin at 55 — so healthy it glows. She has taken wonderful care of herself, but she would, she would have felt it was expected of her, she would expect it of herself.

She lives in a house that is in a word, stolid, unadorned, nothing much softens it except a few throw rugs and on the couch two pillows that don't look all that soft.

The chair in the living room is in the centre of the hardwood floor. She is naked on the chair busily folding towels around her, forcing them between her and the sides of the chair. There are towels on the floor.