Peel Me a Grape

By Kathleen Bradean

As I've often mentioned, my favorite place to write is on the deck of my golden barge as it sails the mighty Los Angeles River. There's something stirring about the sunlight glinting from the bare, sweaty, muscular backs of my oarsmen; the soft, cooling breeze that wafts from the ostrich plume fans wielded by leather-clad pony boys; the attentive care of my twin ex-gymnast grape peelers...

Okay, I can't keep writing this with a straight face. So here's the real deal. My sex life is scattered all through my stories. Like the time I watched my college roommate's boyfriend fuck her. Hey - they knew I was in the bottom bunk. And he saw me watching when our gazes met in the mirror. Didn't stop his rhythm one beat. I'd seen lots of porn, but before that moment, I'd never realized how sexy men are while they're fucking. All that power and thrust in their thighs and buttocks, and the intense concentration on their faces. Beautiful. It also means that I write a lot of voyeurism tales, because I know firsthand how hot it can be.

I've written many times about the breathless look of lust and wonder on a lover's face when they realize sex is inevitable. The transformation is a powerful, primitive drug. In real life and in stories, I mine that moment over and again, and it always works for me.

Once upon a time, I gave worst blow job in the entire history of blow jobs. No exaggeration. He stuffed his dick back into his jeans to stop the travesty bad. I've since dedicated my life to perfecting my technique. But the good side of that - other than my very content practice partner - is that when I write oral sex, I know the bad from the good, and I like writing about how very good the good can be.

What I don't mine for stories is the bad sex, which is why I rarely write lesbian erotica. One time my roommate passed out at a house party and one of the guys gave up his room for her to sleep it off. I thought I'd stay with her to make sure she was safe since I was one of the few sober people in the house. A girl I'd met at the party crawled into bed with me. And like any fumbling boy his first time out with a girl who knows a lot more, I learned how really angry women get when you're terrible at sex. I mean so bad that she left the room in a huff and spent the rest of the night on the floor in the front room with a bunch of broken pretzels as a pillow and a towel for a blanket. Yeah. That bad. It hovers over my imagination like a black cloud of pestilence. Every time I get warmed up to the idea of women lovers in a hot, sexy scene, the cold water of life experience dashes over me and kills the mood.

Theoretically, I'm open to improving my lesbian sex skills as much as I was my bj technique, but in reality, no. Like my golden barge, I think that ship has sailed. But that's okay. I still have plenty of material left to mine even though I'm in a very monogamous, long term relationship. Because I think that the secret to really good sex writing is in the seduction, not explicit sex, and even in a long term monogamous relationship - or especially in one - the seduction is an ever evolving work of craftsmanship.