Professional Liar

By Lisabet Sarai

Breathe... Moist, ripe, heavy, laced with the scents of jasmine, garlic, diesel fuel, the tropical air was strange but welcome after the stale atmosphere of the airplane cabin. Kate O’Neill stepped off the jet way and filled her lungs gratefully. Even in business class, the twenty hour flight had been grueling. Kate ran her fingers through her tangled auburn curls and tried to smooth the wrinkles from her practical cotton skirt as she joined the crowds queuing at Immigration.

She felt a bit dazed. Only a month ago, she had answered the advertisement in the Boston Globe, and now here she was, half a world away, surrounded by foreign faces, buoyed by the musical rise and fall of Thai and a half-dozen other Asian languages.

Thus begins my first novel, Raw Silk – with a re-creation of my own sensory impressions from the first time I got off a plane in Bangkok. Actually, back then, in the nineteen eighties, there were no jet ways. I recall clambering down the steel steps and walking along the tarmack to the terminal, assaulted by the muggy heat even at eleven at night, breathing air that smelled as though I'd landed on another planet.

Like Kate, I'd come to Asia for a new job. I was easily as bewildered and overwhelmed as she by the vagaries of an alien culture. I used my own recollections to bring verisimilitude to Kate's experiences. But is Raw Silk autobiographical?

Yes, and no.

Threads of truth weave through the narrative fabric. The book could be viewed as a fictionalization of my own sexual explorations, especially my initiation into dominance and submission. I borrowed scenes, sexual activities, character traits, even specific items of dialogue from my interactions with my real world master. When he read the novel, he definitely picked up on at least some of my references.

Probably he would have been annoyed at my disclosures, if flattery hadn't won him over. After all, how many men have lovers who immortalize them in best selling (well... sort of) erotic novels? And anyway, my shy, nerdy, sensitive master is barely recognizable in the arrogant, crude, savagely sexy hero Gregory Marshall.

Unless you stop and listen to what the character says...

I'm a writer. That means I'm a professional liar. I take bits and pieces of reality and spin them into fantasy. My fiction abounds in people, situations, and settings drawn from my life and history. Although I might start with the truth, though, I leaven the facts with substantial portions of imagination. And I mix things up – locations, personality traits, sexual adventures – until I really don't need to worry much about the original subjects' complaints about my revelations.

Certainly I don't want to antagonize anyone from my past. However, the primary reason for embroidering upon the truth is simply that real life is rarely as interesting as fiction. I could write about that totally arousing visit to the Renaissance Faire – but in fact I didn't really end up with the bawdy wench and her swain, much as I would have liked to. That solo cross-country rail trip could have involved a quickie in the top bunk – but alas, things never progressed beyond flirting.

Many of my stories begin with actual experiences or relationships, and then spin off into the realm of fantasy when I start to ask “what if”. What if my master and I lived together? (We never have.) What if my mid-western boyfriend in grad school had been interested in BDSM? What if I found a Victorian diary detailing a society woman's sexual adventures? What if I'd met my master after decades of being married to someone else?

In fact, I've only written two or three stories that closely track real events, and even then, I manipulated the outcomes. And I find that as I've gained more writing experience, my tales have grown further from their autobiographical roots. Still, I do return again and again to a few primal scenes, the ones that touched me most deeply, telling the story from different perspectives, reliving the intensity through my characters.

I sometimes wonder whether readers can tell. Do the scenes closer to the “truth” somehow feel more real? Or am I as skilled a liar as I believe?

Let's try a quiz. (Of course this will only work for people who are somewhat familiar with my books...) Which of the following scenes from Raw Silk is mostly closely based on real life?

1. The infamous sex with chillis scene
2. The scene is which Kate masturbates with the knob from the end of her hotel bed
3. The scene in which Kate has sex on stage with a Thai go-go dancer
4. The scene in which Somtow pleasures Kate with a ripe mango
5. The scene in which Gregory sodomizes Kate for the first time.

Am I going to give you the answer? As I consider the list, I'm not sure I can. I know which of the items above I intended as the right selection, but when I review the others in my mind, I realize each one has a core of truth, even if I modified the background details.

In fact, the more I write, the harder I find it to distinguish between things that “really” happened and things that occurred only in my fiction. I know this may seem bizarre, but my most exotic sexual adventures took place decades ago. Looking back now, I find they have a dreamlike quality – not very different from the way I remember my stories. The imaginary settings in my novels feel as tangible and detailed as the places I've actually been – perhaps more so, because I had to observe them more closely in order to describe them for my readers.

At this point, truth and lies intertwine so intimately in my fiction that even I can't distinguish them. And I suppose that might be viewed as dangerous, to some.

But I've always lived my life more in my head than in my body. The products of my imagination have at least as much substance for me as the so-called real world. Dangerous or not, there's nothing I can do.

My Favorite Kind of Research

By Lisabet Sarai

When it comes to research, I'm a bit lazy. Occasionally I'll get bitten by the research bug and spend a bunch of money on books – I dropped nearly a hundred bucks on material about Mayan mythology and culture when I was working on Serpent's Kiss – but usually I'm content with relatively superficial visits to Google or Wikipedia to answer my factual questions. It helps that I don't tend to write much historical fiction. My few attempts in that genre have confirmed my expectations that it's a huge amount of work! No, I have to admit, I'll coast if I can, trusting my imagination and my intuitions when a more scrupulous author would be hitting the reference department.

There's one area, though, where I'm willing to do almost unlimited explorations in the interest of verisimilitude – preferably going to the original source – and that's my settings.

Anyone who's read much of my fiction (all three of you!) knows I often set my stories in foreign destinations. That's merely a symptom of the fact that travel is quite my literally passion. I've probably already shared the story of how my husband seduced me with tales of his adventures in Paris, Instanbul and Bali. Sex, love and travel totally intermix in my mind and my memories. So perhaps it's not surprising that I get story ideas when I'm on one of our international jaunts.

My very first published short story, “Glass House”, draws heavily on my experiences in Prague a few years before I wrote it. Even now, a decade later, rereading it brings back the weird, almost absurd beauty of that venerable city, the edgy, offbeat magic that infects its cobblestone streets and stone bridges, soaring cathedrals and basement pubs.

******

“Let us walk down to the river,” he says, bringing me back to the present. “It is nearly sunset. And there is something that I would like to show you.”

We make our way westward toward the Vltava, in companionable silence. I am struck by the fact that, after all, I do trust Lukaš. For all his swaggering and sexual innuendo, he has treated me with respect. I know how easily he could have taken advantage of me; he probably knows it, too. Somehow, though I have told him nothing, he also senses my conflicts. He knows without being told that I am not free.

Clouds stained by the sunset heap high over the water, which flows gray and smooth like molten lead. Vermilion, ocher, coral, azure: ordinary color names do not apply to these flowing, burning shapes.

Against this multicolored background the spires and towers of Prague Castle on its crag across the river are fairytale silhouettes. For a long time, I simply stare, as the forms merge and change in the dying light. When I finally remember Lukaš, I see he is grinning again, as if he could take credit for this spectacular display.

“Is this what you wanted to show me? It is wonderful!”

“Not exactly. Look across the street.”

The first thing I see is a massive rococo building of yellow stucco, dripping with ornamentation and topped by an onion dome. Then I see the building beside it, and stop short.

It is totally fantastic, whimsical, and bizarre. It began as an ordinary, modern office building, with square windows and a flat roof, facing the river across Smetanova Street. But grafted onto this edifice is a second building, all of glass, shaped like an asymmetric egg timer and leaning at a crazy angle against the staid office block. The sunset colors reflect in its multifaceted façade, so that the building seems to shift and move.

*****

Then there's Amsterdam. I've been there several times, but six or seven years ago we spent an entire week in a tiny guesthouse just around the corner from the train station. Something kept drawing me back to the red light district – maybe the fact my previous visits were prior to my rebirth as an erotica author. I found myself fascinated by the women in the narrow, rose-lit windows, wondering what their lives might be like. The experience ultimately produced my BDSM tale “Shades of Red”.

*****

I've been obsessed ever since last night, when Jane and I wandered through the red light district, staring at the women who waited behind the glass in their rose-tinted rooms. We wove our way through clumps of nervous, intoxicated men who were all staring, too. I could smell their sweat, underneath the beer and the pot smoke. I could feel their lust. It infected me.

They barely noticed us, two teenagers in jeans, although the tight denim in my crotch was so wet, I half-expected they'd catch my scent and turn to me. They had eyes only for the bodies displayed in the rows of windows lining the canals.

Some of the women were ripe, blond, Slavic-looking, their breasts exploding out of their lace brassieres. Others were slight, deliberately child-like in Gidget-inspired bikinis or brief plaid kilts. There was a Brazilian beauty with golden skin and coffee-colored eyes; a voluptuous African princess with strings of ruby-hued beads dangling in her ebony cleavage; a serious-looking brunette wearing dark-framed glasses who sat, shapely legs crossed, like a secretary waiting to take dictation.

Some of the women posed. Others danced suggestively, or made lewd gestures at their prospective customers. There were masked women in leather, snapping riding crops against their boots. There were women whose pierced nipples and labia showed clearly through their translucent garments.

Men clustered around the dimly-lit windows like moths hovering by a candle. Mostly they'd just look, inflamed by the mere thought of all this available flesh. Sometimes I'd see a hushed conversation through a half open glass door. Such conversations might end with the man turning away, disappointed, rejected, or perhaps simply unwilling to pay the asking price. Other times the door would open wider, just enough to admit the supplicant. Then it would close and the red velvet curtains would be drawn, hiding the rest of the dance.

Those curtained windows drew me. I couldn't stop imagining what might be going on behind them. I knew it was a straight commercial transaction in most cases, a workman-like blowjob, or a quick, bored fuck. Still, I imagined occasional revelations, epiphanies, ecstasies -- meetings of strangers pre-destined to be lovers, brief but unbearably intense conflagrations of lust, lewd and mystical connections that would live in his memory, or hers, long after the curtains were flung open again.

I'm nineteen. I've had enjoyable but ultimately frustrating sex with two boys my age. I know that, practical as I am, I'm a bit of a romantic. Otherwise, I would not have continued to roam the red-lit alleys long after Jane gave up and went back to the hotel in disgust. As the Oude Kerk chimed two AM, I wandered up Molensteeg and down Monnikenstraat like some horny ghost. The crowds had thinned. The curtains were mostly drawn. Some of open windows were empty. Next to them were the signs: KAMERS TE HUUR. Windows for rent.

*****

I remember those church bells, ringing through the damp, mostly deserted Amsterdam streets. I just had to capture them in a story.

Then of course there's Bangkok, familiar and yet ever strange after two years of living there and many visits since. I was there not long ago. The city's changing – there are more skyscrapers now, and everyone including the beggars has a cell phone – but the description I wrote nearly a decade ago, in “Butterfly” is still pretty accurate. Except for their piercings and tattoos, the bar girls haven't changed much...

*****

One of my mates, Charlie, knew the city well. He checked us into a comfortable, ridiculously cheap hotel in the middle of the tourist district. Bewildered and dazzled, I followed him along sidewalks crammed with vendors hawking watches, tee shirts and toys, trying to avoid tripping on the broken pavement.

Beggars with shriveled limbs extended their bowls in silent entreaty. Blond, ragged-haired tourists in shorts and sandals, slender Thai women in tight jeans and silk blouses, monks draped in saffron, policemen standing stiffly at corners, their revolvers prominently displayed: it seemed that the whole of the Bangkok was here on this one street. Meanwhile, an endless line of vehicles crawled by us: tint-windowed Mercedes, sooty trucks, and rickety buses with people hanging out the doors. The air was heavy with diesel fumes, frying garlic, and jasmine. We dined at a quiet restaurant on a side lane, where the young waitress giggled every time we spoke to her. Then Charlie took me off to see what he called "the real Bangkok" - the go-go bars and sex clubs.

We sauntered into the "entertainment plaza". Three stories of indoor bars and clubs surrounded a central court, which was crowded with open-air bars and stalls selling skewers of grilled chicken, fresh fruit, and fried locusts. As we walked along the second-level balcony, bikini-clad girls tried to lure us inside their establishments.

<"Come inside," they crooned. "One beer fifty baht. No cover charge." Briefly, the woman would hold back the dark cloth draping the door, offering a tantalizing glimpse of flickering lights and bare flesh. "Take a look, no charge, come inside."

The more energetic of these young marketeers would grab us by the hand, and laughing the whole while, try to pull us in. It was all good-natured, though. We'd extricate ourselves from her strong fingers and thank her. "Not now," we'd say. "Maybe later."

"Why not now?" she'd say, stamping her foot in mock anger. "Don't you like me?"

*****

I've been lots of places I haven't written yet. There are stories inside me set in Instanbul, in Tokyo, in Lisbon. I'm sure they'll find their way out eventually. Of course, sometimes I'll want to set one of my tales somewhere I haven't traveled (at least not yet). Then I do have to do some research – but it's a pleasure.

A few months ago I wrote a short story that takes place in Varanasi (Benares), India. My one trip to India didn't take me anywhere near that ancient, sacred center. I spent delightful hours pouring over websites, gazing at maps, trying to grasp a sense of the place. I don't know if I succeeded (I haven't heard yet whether the tale has been accepted), but I'll tell you one thing: I've added the place to my (all too long) travel wish list!

In Sickness and in Hell

By Lisabet Sarai





How do you write sexy steamy stories when your temperature is over 103 degrees? Can you write a sex scene when you feel like your feet are about to come out your mouth and the toilet bowl is your best friend in the world right now?

Basically, write about writing while sick. Do you do it, or do you crawl in bed and stay there until you feel well again?

This week it's Helen's turn to pick our topic. Unfortunately she spent the last few weeks suffering from the flu, so it's not surprising she asked the questions above. Our Jude has also been down for the count for nearly two weeks, so I'm sure that she'll have some insights to share.

Fortunately, I have little to say on this subject. I'm probably tempting the gods by saying that I have not been really sick in a long time. Yes, I get the occasional cold, which makes my throat scratchy and my head feel like it's stuffed with mashed potatoes. I did have a mild gastrointestinal bug a few months ago that killed my appetite and kept me at home where the toilets are nice and clean. But I haven't been as ill as Helen describes in years.

Of course, my situation is easier than Helen's because I don't have two toddlers. Plus I'm not insane enough to commit to writing and recording a story a week, as she does for her Heat Flash series. (Maybe I'd have more readers if I did, but that's another topic.) As I've shared previously, I am deliberately conservative about what I promise, since I normally can write only once a week. So I'm rarely down to the wire even if I feel totally crappy.

That being said, I do make myself write on my scheduled days, even if I'm not feeling 100%. No excuses. Alright, there are some things more important than my writing, but if I am home on a Sunday, I'll be at the computer concocting as spicy a tale as I can manage.

The only experience I recall where I was writing under serious pressure and feeling quite horrible was one I shared in a post a few weeks ago. When I submitted my first novel to Black Lace, I didn't understand the critical importance of word count, especially for a print publication. My contract said 80,000 words or more. The manuscript I sent them was only about 72,000. I got an urgent email from the editor insisting that I make up the difference right away!

I had either a mild flu or a bad cold that weekend. Whatever it was, I was totally exhausted and my head felt like it was splitting apart. Still, I had to deliver the additional chapters by Monday. I wrote all weekend, 8K words. I don't know where I got the ideas or how I managed to get them down on the page, but somehow I managed. When I think back on it now, it's all a fog.

The odd thing is, the new chapter that I created that awful weekend is one of my favorites.

Raw Silk is the story of a woman who moves to Thailand in order to take a job and become sexually involved with two very different men: the charismatic, dominant proprietor of a go-go bar and a handsome, aristocratic and very married Thai sensualist. Kate participates in increasingly outrageous activities with each of them. Meanwhile, her American lover visits Bangkok, and Kate realizes she has to choose among the three of them. The climax (so to speak) of the tale is a contest in which each man strives to give her the maximum pleasure.

The chapter I wrote that unpleasant weekend takes place before the showdown. Somtow, the Thai, invites Kate to lunch at a hundred year old restaurant in Chinatown. The restaurant is segregated into private curtained booths. (I did not make this up!) After a sumptuous lunch (there is a lot of food in Raw Silk, including a sex scene that involves chilis), Somtow tries to weaken Kate's resolve not to have sex with any of her lovers until the day of the competition.

---

He rang for the waiter, and the dirty plates disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. The young man also brought them a fresh pot of tea.

When the curtains were closed again, Somtow reached into his pocket. He brought out a blue velvet box. "I hope that you will accept this, Katherine, as a token of my love and respect for you. As something to remember me by, perhaps."

Kate wanted to refuse the box, but the look in his eyes stopped her. Silently, she took it from him and opened it.

It was a sapphire necklace, an oval pendant on a delicate gold chain. It was unbelievably beautiful.

Kate was overwhelmed. "Somtow, I can't take this. This should be for your wife, not for me."

"Nong has her own sapphires, Katherine. And she has the honor and misfortune of being my legal wife. I want you to have something tangible, something precious, something to convince you that you are more to me than just a playmate and a diversion."

He was so sincere. Kate felt tears prick her eyes again. Without further comment she carefully fastened the chain around her neck. The stone sparkled in the hollow of her throat.

"Thank you, Somtow,"she said softly. "I am deeply touched."

Her prince watched her, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "You look lovely," he said. "Of course, you would look lovelier still if you removed your blouse."

"Somtow! You promised!"

"Promised what?" he said with mock innocence.

"That you would stick to the rules and would not try to seduce me!"

Somtow grinned. "I am sure that I never promised that!" He leaned forward across the table. "I would never make a promise that I could not keep. In any case, I have a feeling that you really want to take off your top."

It was true, of course. The attraction that Kate had felt toward him during lunch was a hundred times stronger now. She glanced over at the curtains. They were tightly closed. "The management would never enter a booth unannounced," said Somtow. "It would violate all the traditions."

Without a word, she pulled her silk shell over her head. Then she unhooked her brassiere in the front, and let it slide off her shoulders. She sat up straight, enjoying the hungry way that he eyed her bared breasts.

"Ah, Katherine," he sighed. "I see that I was right." He picked up his chopsticks, reached across the table, and deftly caught her left nipple between them. "Quite stiff," he commented approvingly. He applied a bit more pressure and the button of flesh swelled further. Her cunt muscles tensed and her clit tingled.

He switched to the other nipple, rolling it back and forth between the lacquered wood sticks. Kate gave a little moan, and thrust her chest forward.

"You are incorrigible, Somtow," she said when she had caught her breath. "In any case, I'll bet that you are quite stiff yourself."

"You would win that wager," he chuckled. He stood up and Kate saw that he had already unzipped his trousers and released his erection, that he had been stroking himself with his left hand even as he used the chopsticks with his right.

"You know," she said with a smile, "I am still a bit hungry after all." She grabbed one of the cushions from the bench and threw it on the floor in front of him. Then she knelt and began feasting on his smooth, cool flesh.

The slender Thai rested his hands on her shoulders and pressed his pelvis against her mouth. Kate worked his penis like a vacuum cleaner, sucking him as if to extract every drop of his come. She relished his slightly salty taste and the now-familiar whiff of sandalwood that came from him. He moaned, and she paused to admonish him. "Shh!"she whispered. "I don't want the management to come rushing in thinking that I'm doing you harm."

"I can't help myself, Katherine," Somtow gasped.

"Maybe I need to gag you," she said playfully, and then was a little shocked by her own words. Was her association with Gregory polluting her mind to such an extent?

She returned her attention to his cock, licking up and down its length before swallowing it again. The skin was petal-soft. She could feel the pulse of blood raging beneath.

As Somtow came closer to climax, Kate felt her own heart beginning to pound. Her clit throbbed in the same rhythm as his cock, and she could feel her lower lips swelling, opening, aching for attention. She was determined, though, not to allow him access to her sex. Technically, at least, she wanted to adhere to the rules she had established. She wanted the contest on Saturday to be fair and unbiased. She sucked harder, and lightly raked her teeth over his rigid flesh. Come on, Somtow, she thought. Come in my mouth, my sweet prince.

He hovered on the edge. Kate could feel his muscles tensing. But instead of letting go, he gently pushed against her shoulders, pulling out of her mouth. "Turn around, please, Katherine. I want to share my pleasure with you."

"No, Somtow. We all agreed, no sex until the showdown."

"Oh?" He raised one eyebrow. "And what do you call this that we have been doing for the last fifteen minutes?"

"In any case, the notion that you should have no sexual contact with any of us was your idea. In my opinion, it is unnecessary, and unrealistic. You cannot segregate your feelings and desires that way. This lunch is part of the contest, Katherine."

---

As you might expect, Katherine is not very successful in resisting the handsome and persuasive Somtow. Their activities in that curtained booth include some of the most transgressive scenes in the book. However, I won't spoil things by telling you anymore...

Honestly, despite the fact that my head felt about to explode from the pain, the scenes I wrote that weekend are undeniably hot. How did I do that?

I haven't the faintest idea. I guess that is part of the magic of writing.