Would You Like Flies With That?

Garce's Apology This Week:
Hullo friends in Apology-land! This week for my apology I'd like to apologize to people who were expecting PT Two of "Emerald love Goddess of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police" Screwed up again - that theme (porn stars) comes up next week.


Sorry.


Now here we go:


In the real world my sex life doesn’t live up to my ideas or fantasies. In that sense I may say I’m not living up to my potential. But what surprised me when I became more acquainted with writers in the genre is how normal most of us are. Like most people I had certain stereotypes about who would write sexually explicit stories and what I find is, that in spite of a few unique quirks we’re pretty much just plain folks. I suspect that most of us, at least by the standards set for our characters, lead pretty much bread and butter sex lives. I’m stereotyping, I admit it freely, the fact is people probably all have their secret little quirks and rituals but that its very difficult to write about these even in fiction. There are odds and ends about my sexual habits I’ve never explored in fiction, although I think someday I probably should. And in a better world, if I had the resources to follow my impulses freely and without harm, I don’t know what would come out. Not just bread and butter, though, that’s for sure.

I can immediately think of two squicks in erotic writing that I don’t think I could write well, and tend to jump over when I find them in someone else’s stories. And at the same time, two of my all time favorite erotic stories graphically depict these very acts. One has to do with the use of urine or excrement as a sexual fetish. I know people do this. I know that in the world of submissives and dominants, pooping or peeing on someone as an act of degradation is often a key form of sexual expression. Just don’t pee on me.

One of my literary heroes is Nicholson Baker. Baker does not regard himself as an erotica author, nor is he considered one, and yet his literary novel “The Fermata” has embedded in it, two of the best erotic stories I’ve ever read. Both of these stories are intended, at least I think so, as satires of the erotica genre. As pure story craft they are howlingly funny.

The title “The Fermata” comes from a musical term, which is a moment of suspension or silence in a piece of music, a kind of pause that intensifies the action. You also see this in plotted action stories where the hero and his companions maybe sit solemnly around a campfire contemplating the meaning of life or Something Really Deep and enjoying each others soon to be tragically ended company right before all hell breaks loose. It’s a basic element of pacing so as not to exhaust the audience with non-stop head bashing.

In the novel the narrator has the unexplained and mysterious ability to pause time, to actually make it stop. He’s not sure what to do with this ability. He occasionally writes erotic short stories and places them in purses and glove compartments where pretty women will discover them. In this scene he has written a long and gorgeously silly and intricate tale whose narrative acrobatics include public masturbation, a three way between a mature woman and a borderline underage couple, a man in UPS truck, a plumber, a custom made shower head attachment converted into a sex toy, a gardener riding on a lawn mower and a retired woman burying her dildo collection in the flower garden. In this passage I love the playful way he uses language, amping up the hyperbole to purple heights and making up descriptive non-existant words. And of course – squick:

“. . . I really have to go,” said Sylvie. “I’m not kidding.”

“I know you do. Squat down just like you were and suck that cock, I’ll spray you clean. Pull up on your cheeks so I can see. Push and let it go.”

Sylvie took up her cock-sucking squat. She started sucking more Kevin-dick, but faster than before. She pulled one of her cheeks open – her asshole looked exactly the same – tiny, sexy. Then suddenly her piss gushed out everywhere.

“Ah! That’s it,” said Marion frigging her clit. “Show me how you let it all go. Release it. That’s it. Let it all go. Feel it relax.” Marion whisked the linen napkin out from under her toys and held it at the ready. “Let that lovely butt open right up for me.”

Sylvie made a moan of warning. Her asshole domed out into a doughnut shape and began to open.

“Good!” said Marion, “Now stop. Tighten back up on it.”

Sylvie made a straining sound. Her hips rocked. Her asshole slowly closed.

Marion was frigging faster now. She let the spray drive into Sylvie’s ass. “That’s right, honey,” she coached, “ Keep sucking that dick. I know you need to let it out. Push on it.”

“It’s really going to come out this time,” said Sylvie somewhat frantically. “I can’t hold it.”

“I know you can’t hold it. I just want to see your ass open one more time. Its so sexy to see it open up. Let it go. Push now. Give it to us. Come on, push.”

Sylvie moaned again. Her asshole domed and opened wider, and a big dark hard dick shape began to push its way straight out. Marion held the napkin underneath. “Oh yeah, keep pushing baby. Push it all out.” She felt the weight drop in her hand and immediately folded the napkin over it and sprayed Sylvie clean. “Now we’re ready! We’re ready to fuck, kids. Come on, Sylvie get on your hands and knees over me. Open that cunt for Kevin’s cock. I want to see Kevin’s hard dick up your cunt while I pinch your nipples. Come on, I want to see some good hard fucking.”

But Sylvie didn’t obey immediately. She had rights now. She was free to do anything she wanted. Boldly she lifted one of Marion’s juggy tits, and bent to slap it around with her tongue. Then, bringing her blond cunt-site close, she brushed Marion’s nipple-tit over her neglected clit. “Could you hold those tits tight and point them right at my pussy?” she requested with the zeal of a convert. “I think I’ve got a little pee left over for them.”

Sylvie pushed and let a brief spurt spray over Marion’s mildly surprised breasts. “Let me hose it off,” she said and she took the showerhead from Marion and sprayed her mentor off.

“See?” said Marion, recovering quickly. “You can do anything now.”

“Yeah, and now I’m ready for some cock. I need to be fucked good, Kev. Give it to me good.”

From “The Fermata” by Nicholson Baker


I admit when I read this passage, I found myself squirming. And keep in mind, this is just a small fragment of a very long erotic story, written at least partly as a big joke on erotica. But the story as a whole is so good, I loved this scene along with the rest of it and even found it a bit of a turn on. Amazing.

The other squick I have, and some people here will have difficulty with my saying this, is gay sex. In my own defense, I’m a good liberal, I’m in favor of gay rights and all the correct things but I’m just solidly heterosexual in my imagination, and let’s face it, imagination is what we’re talking about. I like women. Big women, big ass, big breasted women with big hairy pussies and big loud voices. Big, gorgeously fuckable floozies. Don’t wash, Josephine! I’m coming! Gay men? Go in peace brother, but just not with me.

Now having said all that, one of the finest pieces of erotic writing I have ever come across was a graphic, chapter spanning depiction of an act of homosexual intercourse written by, of all people, the great James Baldwin.

Baldwin emerged in the ‘50s with about every cultural strike against him a man could have and simply defied everybody. He was black. In your face black. He was flamingly gay, openly and in your face gay. He wrote openly about gay men, and as far as he was concerned if you didn’t like it, it was your own problem. This is a fragment from a much longer scene in his novel “Just Above My Head”:


“. . . He put his hands at Arthur’s waist, pulled his shorts down, got them past one foot, Arthur’s prick rose.

Crunch stroked it and grinned. "That’s enough progress for now,” he said, and he put his rigid sex against Arthur’s, and then they simply lay there, simply holding onto each other, unable to make another move. They really did not know where another move might carry them. Arthur was afraid in one way, and Crunch in another. It was also as though they had expended so much energy to arrive at this moment that they had to fall out and catch their breath. This moment was almost enough. But it was only a moment; the train was boarded, the engine ready to roll. They held onto each other. this might be the beginning; it might be the beginning of the end. The great train was boarded, the engine pulsing, the doors slamming shut behind them, the train would soon be moving, the journey had begun. They might lose each other on this journey, nothing could be hidden on this journey. They might look at each other miles from now, when the train had stopped in some unimaginable place, and wish never to see each other again. They might be ashamed, they might be debased. They might be forever lost. “

From "Just Above My Head" by James Baldwin

It’s a funny thing, but when you read it, being gay seems incidental. What’s happening to them, the wonder and fear of new love is simply universal, gay or straight. And of course what happens explicitly enough in the next few paragraphs is universal too. Let’s face it, fine writing is where you find it. Even squicky stuff can be beautiful when its created by loving hands. The Nicholson Baker story as a whole is just good word-smithing up and down, its funny and it works for me, poop scene and all. The Baldwin piece is dead serious, but its so honest and so filled with humanity and the author loves these two men who are lost in each other so much, it just wins me over. I can read either of those squicky scenes and tell myself – damn! I wish I’d written that.



C. Sanchez-Garcia