Contrary Fantasies - #opposites #tropes #chemistry

By Lisabet Sarai

Opposites attract.

We’ve all heard the saying, dozens of times. But is it true?

In real life, I have my doubts. However, the trope has abiding popularity, especially in the romance genre. The impoverished but virtuous serving wench wins the heart of the wealthy, titled rake. The mousy office temp catches the eye of the billionaire CEO. The virgin librarian finds herself swept up in the hedonistic world of the rock idol. The sophisticated city gal moves out west, only to end up with the gruff, unpolished (but rugged and handsome) cowboy.

Hey, I plead guilty to using the device myself. In Challenge to Him, set in the first decade of the twenty century, my heroine Olivia is a liberated, intellectual labor activist. Somehow she finds love with a robber baron whose riches depend on the oppressed masses. Theo, in The Gazillionaire and the Virgin, is a surly, sexually-inexperienced recluse who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Yet he manages to snag the affection of extroverted, media-savvy Silicon Valley hotshot Rachel, who’s had dozens of lovers.

The attraction of opposites shows up in a lot of erotica, too. In these stories, “opposite” often means unfamiliar, forbidden, even dangerous. A buttoned up career woman ends up with her back against the brick wall of an alley, being fucked without mercy by a luridly tatooed biker. A hen-pecked husband takes a risk and hires a glamorous, seductive high class hooker for a night. A petite, Caucasian woman gives in to her craving for a huge, well-hung Black man. In my erotic story “Muse”, a popular author of erotic romance discovers she’s being stalked by the scruffy janitor of her apartment building – and that he’s exactly the sort of stern and demanding Master she has secretly craved all her life.

Why does the “opposites attract” trope work so well in erotic fiction? To be honest, I think we’re trading on everyone’s contrary fantasies. The sexual grass is always greener over on the neighbor’s lawn. We imagine how exciting love and lust could be, if it were somehow different from what we actually experience. Nothing seems hotter than sex with a stranger — a real stranger, someone from a totally different world, with a different background, different expectations, different tastes. (Perhaps this explains the popularity of alien abduction!)

For the romantically-inclined, there’s another angle to consider. In the most satisfying romance, love conquers all. It bridges gaps, heals divisions, harmonizes even the most extreme differences. The greater the disparity between the protagonists, the more impressive and affecting we find love’s ultimate triumph.

Fiction is designed to entertain, to enlighten, to provide cathartic identification with the characters. It’s exciting, fascinating and novel to fantasize about loving (or fucking) the Other.

In the real world, though — well, at least in my personal experience — I’m not likely to be attracted to someone who is truly opposite to me. I’m never going to be drawn to a rap musician who sings about beating up his bitches. I can’t imagine connecting with a rabid sports fan, or someone who spends six hours a day in the gym, or, to be honest, with a millionaire. I just couldn’t communicate with people whose priorities were so different from mine — and great sex, even for one night, depends on communication as much as on chemistry.

All of my serious relationships and most of my casual encounters have involved people with whom I had quite a lot in common: educational level, intellect, values, and interests. Most of my lovers have cared more about books than money, more about world peace than basketball, more about new experiences than new things.

I do believe in biologically-based attraction. There have been a few times in my life when I’ve been inexplicably drawn to someone who seemed all wrong, a panoply of opposites. Usually it turned out that he or she was wrong for me, the chemistry spoiled by a persistent lack of comfort.

Hence, I tend to be skeptical when people claim that opposites attract. Except, of course, in books.

Faded Plaid Flannel (#FlashFiction #chemistry #olfactory)

By Lisabet Sarai

He’d left it behind when he moved out. Guess the old bathrobe became too ratty even for his casual tastes. She can’t look at it without seeing his wiry frame wrapped in the faded plaid flannel, crouched over his poetry at the kitchen table. Vodka on one side, smoldering cigarette on the other, close enough to touch, a million miles away.

She holds it to her face, breathing him in, sweat and tobacco, and underneath, that elusive musk that first hooked her. Addictive, intoxicating—in an instant she’s drunk with the astounding lust that first drew them together. Eyes closed, she relives their ecstatic frenzy, the clarity of pure connection. In bed they were one body, obscene and holy. She never cared what they did; every carnal act felt like a sacrament. The loss of him, of that glory, is a vast, black, aching wound in her chest.

He’d felt it, too. Inhaling her female perfume, he lost himself, drowned in her lushness. Scary. One reason— along with his wanderlust—that he’s gone.

Chemistry’s not the same as compatibility.

She stuffs the rag between her thighs. Eventually the flannel will smell only of her.

Some Enchanted Evening

By Lisabet Sarai

Some enchanted evening

you may see a stranger,

you may see a stranger

across a crowded room,

and somehow you know,

you know even then,

that somewhere you'll see her

again and again.

~ Oscar Hammerstein II, South Pacific

I’m willing to believe that love at first sight happens occasionally, but I haven’t experienced it myself. As I think I’ve shared here before, when I first met my husband (36 years ago!), I tried to discourage his obvious interest in me, because I already had too many men in my life. It took four months of cross-country correspondence and a month at my dying mother’s bedside for me to begin to understand what a special person he was.

My relationship with the man I call my master also developed gradually. We were casual friends for over a year, before he dropped out of grad school and headed for California. A lengthy epistolary seduction landed me in his bed and his bonds. (Hmm. Both cases involved writing. Is there a pattern here?)

I’ve certainly been hit by lust at first sight—that intense, immediate chemistry one sometimes feels when meeting a potential partner for the first time. That has rarely worked out well. Physical attraction and sexual compatibility just aren’t enough, by themselves, to support a serious relationship. I recall one guy, in particular, whom I met at a girlfriend’s wedding in San Francisco and found almost unbearably attractive. I gave him a lift back to the LA area, where we were both living at the time. We first had sex that very same evening. Definitely fireworks material. Before long, though, I realized that though I still wanted him, I didn’t like him much. He was immature, and not very trustworthy or honest. Still, we remained lovers for a couple of months, mostly because of the sex. I felt a sense of relief when we finally broke up.

Love at first sight is of course a common trope in romance, but it’s difficult to make the phenomenon convincing. When it’s done well, the couple almost always questions the reality of the connection. The characters know that this kind of immediate bond is rare. In fact, coming to believe in their own love can be a central story conflict.

As I mentally review my own backlist, I can’t think of a single contemporary or historical title in which my protagonists fell instantly in love. In paranormal romance, though, I’ve found I can stretch plausibility. My paranormal titles sometimes feature what I call “magical lust”—an instant, irresistible attraction between the protagonists that derives from their fated connection. Characters in a paranormal book are often lovers by destiny. Their complementary powers draw them together. Often they’re mystified by the potent forces that bind them, but readers understand and welcome this kind of attraction (which is, after all, another trope).

Here’s an example from my novella Rough Weather.

A high-pitched whine drew her attention to the tumbled boulders that marked the eastern extent of the beach. Atop the pile of rock crouched a dark-skinned man, boring into the surface with some kind of drill.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Ondine strode towards the interloper, still holding her discarded clothing. “That noise—you’ll disturb the fish!” She halted on the sand below his perch, one hand shielding her eyes from the glare. “Stop that this instant!”

The stranger raised his head and fixed her with eyes like polished jet, set in a proud face almost as black. A cloud of wiry hair haloed his skull. He flipped a switch and the irritating noise died. His full lips parted in a confident smile, revealing even, pearly teeth. He rose to his full height—at least six feet, she guessed, though her position made him look even taller—and gazed down at her.

Self-consciousness blasted through her as she suddenly remembered she was naked. Hot blood raced to her face while her nipples tightened into ruddy peaks, and an echo of her recent climax shimmered in her still-damp pussy.

The stranger looked distinctly amused, as though he sensed the physical effects his presence triggered. There was something else, too, an unnerving sense of familiarity, although Ondine was certain she’d never met this man before.

She squared her shoulders, ignoring her embarrassment as best she could. She wasn’t ashamed of her body—far from it. “You can’t drill here. Tide pool habitats are very sensitive. The vibrations could kill crustacean larvae, for a start, and confuse organisms that rely on echolocation…”

The black man’s grin grew broader. He scanned her nude figure with deliberate and obvious interest before he answered. Ondine’s nipples ached under his scrutiny, even as her blood boiled at his brazen attitude.

“I have a permit.” His voice had an unexpected softness, with a faint hint of the Caribbean. He rifled in the pocket of his tight jeans and pulled out a sheet of paper, which he offered her. “Mass DEP. Go ahead and check. I think you’ll find it’s all in order.”

The sun beat down, hotter than ever. Sweat gathered under her arms and at the back of her neck. Ignoring the proffered permit, she planted her fists on her hips and summoned every ounce of authority she could muster.

“This beach is private, reserved for Katama residents. What’s your business here?”

Stuffing the permit back into his pants, he sank into a crouch to pick up a piece of equipment that he’d propped against a rock, next to a two-meter steel pole. His thigh muscles flexed against taut denim as he rose. His white T-shirt emphasised his ebony skin, sculpted pectorals and massive biceps—her mouth felt dry and her pussy, wet. “I’m installing a temporary meteo-hydrographic monitoring station.” The device bristled with lenses, buttons and dials, the pinwheel of an anemometer, and the tongue-like extrusion of a rain gauge. “Come on up. Take a look.”

“Just a minute.” She stepped into her shorts, then pulled her shirt over her head, trying to ignore the sensation of fleece brushing across her naked breasts. In her bare feet, she clambered up over the knobby, rust-coloured stone until she stood beside him. He towered over her. She caught a whiff of sandalwood and coconut oil and was washed by sudden desire.

He pointed to a white plastic rectangle. “This is the hygrometer, the humidity sensor.”

“Yes, yes, I understand. You’ve got a laser ceilometer for cloud height, I see, and an infrared camera for thermal imaging…”

“What…?”

She found his surprise gratifying, as he realised she wasn’t just a naked, blonde beach bunny.

“I’m a marine biologist. We use similar devices in my lab at Woods Hole. But VineyardAirport has a full suite of weather instrumentation. Why are you installing this system here?”

“I’m working on the design for an offshore wind farm.”

“Wind mills?” Her indignation returned, blasting through her with hurricane fury. “Those spell death for sea birds!”

“We’re doing research—”

“And the awful, endless hum disorients cetaceans. They swim in circles until they starve to death!” She snatched the apparatus and held it above her head, threatening to smash it upon the rocks.

“Don’t! Please!” Seizing both her wrists in one massive hand, he pried the delicate gadget from her clutches with the other.

She did not fight him. When he touched her, her anger fled as quickly as it had arisen, to be replaced by irresistible, irrational lust. Her pussy gushed and her clit pulsed between her thighs. Electricity zipped along her limbs. Her modest breasts felt huge and heavy, aching for contact.

The stranger’s eyes grew wide. Sweat beaded on his forehead. She dropped her gaze to his crotch. A visible bulk distended the fabric there, evidence that he shared her reactions.

Without releasing her, he placed the weather station upon an outcrop, then dragged her into a rough embrace. Their lips mashed together as they grappled, tearing at one another’s clothing in a desperate quest for bare skin. The rusty taste of blood flooded her mouth. She’d bitten her own lip in her hunger for him. His flavour was spicy with a burnt edge, like an autumn breeze. His brazen tongue mirrored the frantic dance of his hands on her flesh.

She wormed her hands into his trousers so she could grip the smooth, solid curve of his buttocks. The muscles tightened and shifted under her palms as he ground his hardness against her. Her shorts hung loose on her hips. He dragged them down to her knees and plunged his fingers into her drenched cunt, smothering her moan of delight with another fierce kiss.

Ondine fumbled with the stranger’s zipper as he delved into her core, pushing her closer to the edge. She needed to complete the circle of pleasure, to feel him hard and smooth and slick in her hand. The pressure of his swollen flesh against his fly and the exquisite play of his fingers in her sex combined to render her task almost impossible. Finally, using both hands, she managed to open a gap big enough to release his cock from its prison. Now she made him moan, as she stroked his taut shaft and coaxed him towards release.

“Oh, ah, Father Legba! Oh, woman, you will undo me…!”

The man sank to his knees, and she followed, unwilling to relinquish her hard-won grip on his cock. He fisted her hair to take possession of her mouth again. She drank in the heat of him, the taste of him, at once strange and familiar, pumping his cock all the while. Gravel tore at her knees as she opened her thighs to expose her needy cleft. His thumb found her clit, sending bolts of sensation roiling through her. She rolled her thumb over his slick bulb in return. Waves of tension rippled up the shaft, proof of his struggle for control.

Somehow he’d ripped her shirt open. He bent his head to suckle her and she felt the same pull deep in her centre. His teeth closed around her aching nipple. She raked her nails along his length.

His cock shuddered and jerked in response, spilling warm fluid into her palm. At the same instant, he captured her clit between two fingers and squeezed.

~~~

The characters go from adversaries to lovers in seconds. As it turns out, Ondine is a Water Elemental and Marut is an Air Elemental. They have been lovers for eons, reborn in each generation. They’re fated to be together, to balance the varied forces of Nature. Though they don’t understand their connection, they can’t help but surrender themselves to magical lust, and to love.

Writing this sort of scene is a guilty pleasure. I know this kind of overwhelming, magic-enhanced attraction probably doesn’t exist. It sure is fun, though, to pretend that it does.

The Voice Whispering in my Ear

By Lisabet Sarai

Okay, I've endured it long enough. It's payback time. This is the week that I'm going to make Garce blush, the way he's always doing to me!

Our topic this week is “Constructive Criticism”, and I have to say, I don't know anyone whose critiques could be more aptly called constructive. When I pass a story to Garce for comments or consult him about some question of character or plot, I really never know what I'll get back. However, it's almost always something I didn't expect. He reads what I've written and then takes off, making wild suggestions that almost always shake up my view of the tale. Garce's critiques are “constructive” in the sense that they construct new conflicts, problems, scenarios, possibilities, even worlds.

I have other crit partners, people who will let me know when they find an awkward transition or a poorly motivated action or even (heaven forfend!) a bit of unruly grammar. I appreciate their time and effort, and I always find their commentary useful. They help me polish the story as I wrote it. When I ask Garce for a critique, I'm always a little worried, because his reply may force me to massively rethink what I've written.

Here's an example, from his crit of my story “Chemisty” (which was eventually published in Coming Together With Pride).

I'm used to thinking in really weird terms. So I was looking for something weird.

Take your description of Frank. I was thinking - Frank is this jolly old, kind of sloppy ‘60s guy, right out of a Cheech and Chong gag. He sounds like what? A mythical being! Frank is a satyr! She's going to be riding him wildly, baffled at her own sluttiness and infidelity – what in the world has gotten into her beside Frank? - and she sees his lower half turn into the lower half of a goat or something.

I was thinking Rosemary's Baby. Mia Farrow crying out when she sees the devil's eyes "This is NOT a dream! This is really happening!" I thought she had walked into some curio shop on a side street and been seduced by Zeus or a lusty goat-man. Bacchus! That was why she was unable to resist him. Why is she unable to resist his advances? No convincing explanation is given. So now’s your chance to come up with one.

Here’s another: I saw the little lab in the back of the third floor and I thought "Son of a Witch! This guy has discovered that which mankind, in all civilizations in all of history has universally sought and never really found - a genuine aphrodisiac." Damn, he’s going to be rich.

Think about it. No one in any culture has ever discovered a magic substance that if you take it you become irresistibly, recklessly horny. But what if an obscure chemist really discovered it? I mean it as in “IT”. The Godzilla of pheromones?

When Garce does a crit, he uses the story as a springboard for his own imagination. Sometimes, though, he sees what the tale really needs. In the case of this one, he was right on. I had this young, beautiful, career-obsessed pharmaceutical chemist falling into instant lust with a guy decades older, a guy whose cultural roots are completely alien to her. Why? In the end, I did introduce the notion of a super-aphrodisiac (it turns out the guy's a famous chemist, too) – though I never made a commitment as to whether the attraction is really chemical or not.

One of Garce's favorite comments in his crits is “Let's muddle this a bit.” He doesn't accept anything I write a face value. He always looks deeper. He wants to complicate things. And because he knows me fairly well at this point (anyone who reads my erotic stories knows me rather personally, after all), he can get away with making connections between what I write and what I feel (as opposed to what my characters feel). For instance, he wrote the following about my story “The Antidote”.

[Lena] might be a more complex character if she were not satisfied to be in tepid resignation or compatibility with Jeff, or saw herself that way, and was rebelling against not only the restrictions being imposed on a naturally passionate nature by an authoritarian society, but also against her marriage. Her marriage was engineered by society, not by her own search for love after all. Going to the club is her moral rebellion against everything in her life. She reminds me a little of Henry Jekyll in the “Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Jekyll wants to go on being the respected Victorian gentleman, but as Mr. Hyde he gets to party down. She is Jekyll, not by choice but to stay out of trouble, and taking her drug is her way of busting out as Miss Hyde. As presented, she’s rebelling against society, but what if she were also rebelling against her husband?

In this context when she gets bailed out by Jeff, she might think he’s going to punish her harshly or even violently, and at the least divorce her sorry ass, and maybe this is what society expects of him. But instead of a beating or worse, they break out in passion having been liberated by their sexual escapades, and discovering an excitingly dark side of each other unknown to the other before. He might even make a big show of indignation in the presence of the authorities, and then when they’re alone bring out the leather and handcuffs and a sheepish confession. They can discover things in their relationship with each other they never knew were there. After all, what obsession are you exploring here? Your own rebellion against romance genre convention.

In my opinion Lena is you. Let her be you even more.

Not what one normally expects in a critique. But I value his opinions and his insights, and once again, he put his finger on the reason that the story's original ending was weak.

I've learned a great deal from our discussions (of his work as well as of my own). Now I seem to have internalized some of his critical style. When I write, I sometimes hear his metaphorical voice (we've never actually spoken) whispering in my ear, making suggestions (often outrageous), asking questions (always difficult), forcing me to dig deeper and not be satisfied with my first inclinations.

I have a tendency to be lazy when I write. It's relatively easy for me to pen a tale that will titillate without really saying anything. You know, a potato chip story, tasty but with no substance. Garce makes me work. When I dare to ask him for a crit, I know that he won't let me off the hook until my story does more than just turn the reader on.

And for that, I'm seriously grateful.