Abstract: Research into a writing topic gives a writer some new viewpoints
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Attitude Adjustment
by Rajah Dodger {rdodger@hotmail.com} Copyright 2010
I don't meet a lot of other smut writers. It's not the kind of hobby that holds lunch meetings or conferences - in ten years I've only met two other writers. So when I got an email from a fellow writer who mentioned he'd be in my town for a few weeks, lunch with him sounded like an interesting idea.
He wasn't a total stranger - we both posted on many of the same writers' websites, and we'd had a long-running discussion on one particular board about why people pick particular story topics. His stories were mostly male/male scenes with some mind control subplots; mine tended toward dominance/submission, short sex-oriented vignettes, and romantic hetero or lesbian encounters, although I'd written one-off stories in a half dozen different fetish areas as well.
I might still have turned him down, but I just loved his pen name, "Feygin". Anyone who uses Charles Dickens for porn is someone I want to meet.
We got together at Applebee's, about as vanilla a meeting place as one could ask for, and outside the group of places where people I knew were likely to show up. Not that I'd have any problems explaining lunch with an acquaintance, but sometimes careful is good.
Somewhere between salad and the third beer, we finished complaining about our respective jobs and started talking about how we wound up in them. I had written computer technical manuals before getting into programming; he had spent a year issuing press releases for a low-budget wrestling circuit then managed activities at a church community center.
We were both readers, of course. He read a lot of biographies while my comfort subject was science fiction. We talked about which websites were currently paying for stories, and played mutual flattery quoting from scenes in each others' stories. The only thing writers enjoy as much as getting paid is knowing someone else really likes their work.
That was when he brought back his question from one of the website forums about why I didn't write stories with male/male scenes.
What do you say to a question like that? In the first place, I had actually written one such scene, though the action was implied rather than explicit. In the second place, it seemed a little like asking a romance author why she didn't write murder mysteries. I was trying to think of a polite way to suggest that our lunch was over, when he said "I think I know, actually."
There's not a writer around who can sit still when someone else says they know why he or she writes. I sat back in my chair and waved a hand, asking him to go ahead and enlighten me.
^^^^^^^^
"You see," he began, "there are just a handful of reasons why someone with as many stories as you have written would skip that area. First, maybe you don't find anything about men erotic. But I read your one masturbation story, and even without hinting at what his fantasies are you nailed the whole physical sensuality of the experience." He chuckled. "Granted, that's kind of like the cliche of writing what you know, but it still has to be done well."
"Second, maybe you don't like gays. I've actually spoken with some erotica writers who are violent homophobes, so I know it's possible - though some of those guys write the hottest male/male rape stories." He shook his head. "It doesn't fit though. Anyone who can write a story about a man molesting his cancer-ridden aunt where the sex is gripping and the guy comes off as a sympathetic figure - well, that person wouldn't let mere dislike keep him from writing a story."
He took a long hit from his beer. I appreciated the compliment - I was justifiably proud of that story - but waited for the other shoe to drop.
"Third, you could be one of those guys who's afraid if he writes about homosexual activity people will think he must be gay himself. But hell - you've written half a dozen stories about that transsexual plumber, and nobody in the critique boards has ever suggested you were writing from experience."
"So that leaves number four. You don't think you're up to it."
My beer bottle hit the table, but he waved off my spluttered response and continued.
"Of course, I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm just saying you don't think you can do it believably. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't write about accountants - come to think about it, I don't think anyone writes erotica about accountants, but that's beside the point."
Somewhere in that comment was at best a left-handed compliment. The pleasant buzz from the beer vanished, and it took me a few moments to get my reactions enough under control to interrupt the flow of his lecture.
"There's a hole in your logic," I said. "At least one. For example, a good writer can pick up what he or she needs from other sources and doesn't have to rely only on first-person experience. Think about science fiction stories as an example. Or Pam the Preop Plumber, for that matter. I read Plumbing for Dummies and spent twelve sweaty hours in a peep show booth listening to the noises from next door and watching videos before I wrote the first of those."
He finished his beer and smiled. "Yeah, and I don't hear you saying I'm wrong either. Hey, it's not a big deal. I just thought since you've covered almost every other major area in the tag cloud that maybe you'd appreciate some leads, references, that sort of thing. One writer to another. We all start somewhere, and I can send you some files and web links that I found helpful."
He may have been arrogant in analyzing me, but he had a point. In something over seventy stories, I'd written exactly three scenes of man-on-man action. None of them had the kind of explicit detail of my hetero stories or for that matter my lesbian stories, and I shied away because I just didn't know how to write something that wouldn't sound stilted or silly. His stories were certainly convincing in that regard.
And even though I didn't feel any great need to write male on male erotica, the fact that I hadn't been able to now grated on me, almost as much as his casual assumption that it came from some lack of confidence or ability on my part. So I thanked him for the offer, finished my own beer, and we went our separate ways. He didn't know it, but he'd laid down a challenge, and I wasn't going to admit failure.
^^^^^^^^
I checked my mail when I got home that evening, and there were three items from Feygin. One had the promised web links, one was a collection of picture attachments, and the third held three video files.
The pictures weren't what I expected. I thought of gay porn as leather, rubber, and hairy guys - I'd certainly seen my share of that back when I was doing the groundwork for my Pam the Plumber stories. Instead I found myself looking at a collection of photographs more focused on facial expressions, the curves and lines of taut muscles, the contact of skin on skin. In tone they reminded me of some of the lesbian porn sites I really liked. There weren't any tags on the photos; I wondered where he had found them.
They did give me a couple of ideas, one of which seemed promising - a guy assigned to a detox program where the all-male staff was heavily into physical exercise and wrestling as therapy. I fiddled with it for a while, but it didn't seem to be going anywhere. By the time I gave up, it was already past my usual bedtime so I saved my drafts and went to bed.
For the rest of the week, when I got home I alternated between reviewing the pictures, looking at different sites on the web, and starting unsatisfactory story drafts. Friday night, since I didn't have anything else to do, I opened up the email with the videos. The first one was kind of jittery, and looked like a transfer from the middle of a VCR tape.
Two guys were working out in the gym, wearing grey workout shorts and tee shirts, making the rounds of the equipment stands. Both had worked up a good sweat, and their shorts clung, framing their cocks. The taller one finished off his exercises with a cable kickback. The muscles of his legs stood out as he extended his foot behind him.
While he was catching his breath, the shorter man moved in from behind and slid his hands around, cupping the other man's crotch, knuckles shifting as his fingers moved.
The taller man writhed in that grasp - the camera shifted around the side to show his growing erection, the legband of his shorts lifting just a bit to give a teasing glimpse of swollen testicles. The short man's hand slid down inside the shorts and the camera zoomed in for a closeup, but the picture got blurry - I could see the outline of the cockhead under the fabric, and maybe a stain at the tip, but even looking close it was hard to tell for sure.
Suddenly, abruptly, the video ended. I found myself leaning forward, squinting toward the monitor, rubbing my thighs together. Yeah. I could write a scene like that.
At least that's what I thought, but nothing would come together Saturday morning after I woke up. I could get the words onto paper, but none of the music was there. I filed it away and went back to my most current TG story, but couldn't find a groove there either. I opened my miscellaneous picture folder and clicked at random. Nothing grabbed me. I went back to the video; there was something in the camera work or maybe the lighting, the scene just hinted at an intense sexual power without ever getting around to showing it. I replayed it several times, but I just couldn't identify the trick that made it so attention-grabbing.
I had some bills to pay and other mundane tasks to do around my apartment, then I put on my headphones and just listened to Beethoven, Ravel and Gershwin for a while. I was still restless, so I went back to the computer and opened up the second video.
This film didn't have a title either. Two guys were doing laps in a swimming pool, then went to the shower room where they soaped up and then started lathering each other. The video quality was a little scratchy, but for this scene it didn't matter. Two bodies sliding against each other, erect cocks rubbing together, soapy fingers exploring underarms and asscheeks - sometimes you don't need a plot. I licked my lips; this was seriously hot.
Groping and rubbing gave way quickly to hunching and stroking, and when one man went down practically swallowing the other guy's cock, I could just about feel the sensation myself. The camera focused on the standing man's face, zeroing in on a look of either agony or ecstasy. It was definitely ecstasy, obvious the moment he tensed in orgasm.
He slumped back against the tile wall and would have fallen, but his companion eased him down gently, stroking his face. He turned the weakened man around and positioned him on all fours, sliding a bar of soap between his wet asscheeks. The camera zoomed in, and you could see the anus flare open. The wet cockhead was fitted to the soapy opening and pushed slowly inside, then pulled out. In, then out, faster and harder, slapping sounds coming through the speakers until a second explosion occurred and both bodies twisted and arched under the spray of the shower.
The file got scrambled at that point, breaking up into weird geometrical shapes. I watched a bit longer, but the problem didn't go away. The visual fuzz was giving me a headache and I needed to masturbate, so I went to bed on that note.
^^^^^^^^
Over the weekend I toyed with and tossed out any number of story setups - a guy trapped in a stable tack room, a college student being consoled by his secretly gay roommate after breaking up with his girlfriend, even a setup where a guy was hitting on a woman in a bar only to find out later in the dark that she was a man. But that was more of a TV/TS story and I was trying to write a straight M/M plot.
Out of curiosity I went to a local adult book store and video arcade, and used up a number of dollar bills checking out what they had in the gay department. The videos varied from quick suck and fuck loops to moderately complex plots, and they were all clear and crisp without the fuzziness of the files I'd gotten in the email. None of them, however, had that visceral impact.
When I got back I looked at the emailed videos again. Despite the flicker and jitter of the camera work, they had an awesome sense of presence and reality. I still didn't have a story idea that was working, so I opened up the mail message with the web links. The first one was all about men in rubber, gas masks, forced handjobs and the like - just what I'd expected. I sampled the other sites, not finding anything specifically helpful but getting a better appreciation of the field.
I went back to the pictures. There was something I was missing, some indescribable difference between "hot" and "erotic." I could look at a picture or a video and feel the pulse inside, even though I would never look at a guy and think "he's hot." Then again, I didn't really need to be able to respond to a visual that way myself - I only needed to convey excitement through my words. I studied the pictures again, trying to feel the heat behind the flat screen. I almost had... something.
By the end of the weekend I'd tossed a half dozen ideas into the trash basket and was getting seriously frustrated. It couldn't be this difficult; there were thousands of guys posting gay porn fantasies all over the internet. Granted, most of them didn't pretend to have a plot, those that did were either two characters who just had to be in the same scene to be banging each other or some variation on coerced sex.
That was when I realized what my problem was - I was trying to force my characters into one of those molds, and that just wasn't how I worked. I needed to let my characters find each other. With that, a weight seemed to fall off my shoulders and I sketched out a half dozen different opening paragraphs. Things felt a lot better - I was back in my writing groove. I checked the videos one last time, just to keep my mind in the right space, and headed to bed.
^^^^^^^^
Monday at lunch it hit me: The narrator was being felt up by the man who was fitting him for a suit. The idea wasn't original - I'd probably read a hundred lesbian first time stories with that kind of setting - but it was different with two men. I could just about feel the fitter's hands, sliding up the insides of my legs, measuring my crotch. I don't usually let a story idea run away with me like that, but I was practically bouncing in my chair for the rest of the day. Once I got home, my creative juices were in full swing - I didn't even bother with dinner, just went to my computer and opened up a fresh story template. This was going to be a good one. My fingers practically flew across the keyboard as the story took shape:
^^^^^^^^
"Working Title: Fitting In"
The good news about the takeover was Jeff's elevation to vice-president of the western branch. The bad news, in his opinion, was having to give up casual clothes in favor of the monkey suits favored by the Europeans. At least they covered the expense of his new wardrobe.
"The fitter will see you now, Mister Harrison." Jeff put down the magazine and followed the menswear assistant into the back of the tailoring area. The young man waiting there with an impatient attitude was blandly sleek in the manner of magazine covers. He gave Jeff the shortest of looks and fluttered his fingers dismissively. "I am Emile. I will be measuring and preparing you for your proper clothing. Now remove those."
Jeff looked around, confused. "I thought you took measurements over the pants." The fitter looked pointedly at Jeff's khaki slacks. "Perhaps at J.C. Penney - here you are being measured for real clothing." The put-down was delivered with a scathing tone, as if such material might contaminate the high-end suits of the clothier. Jeff unbuckled his belt and slid his slacks down to his ankles.
"Dress left or dress right?" The question left Jeff completely baffled. The younger man circled around him like a lion sniffing its prey. "Oh, never mind - you wear briefs. You'll have to change that for the formal dress pants, of course. Now get it all off and stand on the platform." Jeff flushed, but sat down to take off his shoes and trousers, then wriggled out of his briefs as well. He stepped onto the raised platform with his face flushed and his cock dangling, reflected in all three mirrors.
[...]
The orgasm caught Jeff by surprise, his groin clutching painfully as he emptied himself into Emile's mouth. "Now," Emile said after licking his lips, "we give you a real fitting." He half-dragged, half-pulled Jeff over to lie atop the tailor's table, then rubbed something slick between his cheeks. It tingled, but Jeff didn't have time to appreciate that before Emile was inside him.
Jeff moaned at the intrusion, his cock still dribbling as the other man's shaft drove deeply in and out. His head was cheek-down on the table, and the nearby mirror showed a distorted reflection of their bodies bouncing against each other. He wondered if this meant he was gay now, and then Emile grunted and the first thick blast drove all thought out of Jeff's mind.
^^^^^^^^
I didn't like the working title. I changed it to "Attitude Adjustment" - I had planned to use that for my story about a perverted chiropractor, but that idea had gone nowhere and the title worked well enough for this one.
I did a word count, updated the story summary codes, and saved the file. Then I uploaded it to my online repository, put a note on my blog, and kicked back with a grin on my face. If I'd had a bucket list for writing, I'd have slashed a big red "X" in the male/male category. Celebrations were in order, but first a certain writer needed to know what his "analysis" was worth.
I opened up my email and there was a message waiting from him. He'd sold a collection of his stories, and did I want to be his guest for lunch before he left town? I liked the idea of springing my story on him at lunch, so I turned on my instant messenger, caught him on line, and confirmed the restaurant and time. It was a good restaurant, too - not one that I'd go to on my own wallet.
Lunch was great! He had lobster and Scotch; I had a tender filet and a rich Tuscan cabernet. Between ordering and getting our food, I handed him my printout. He chuckled a couple of times, lifted his eyebrow twice, and finally set the papers down. "Not bad," was his comment. "I know a couple of short story aggregators who would be interested in this." A couple more drinks, and we wound up heading to his hotel room to get the names of his contacts. I sat at his laptop to copy down the information while he went to relieve himself.
When he came out of the bathroom he was naked. In the moment between my thinking "what the hell is going on here?" and "wow is he hung," he crossed the room and wrapped me in a bear hug, covering my mouth with Scotch-flavored lips and rolling his crotch against mine. I struggled in his strong arms, but that only made my surprising erection harder. His hands gripped my ass and pulled me against him, and while I was weakly fighting, my body was still responding.
It was different, up close and personal.
Somehow my pants were unbuckled and his hand was around my cock, stroking, rubbing my erection against his. I strained to hold myself back but he could tell. The next thing I knew I was bent over the back of the hotel chair and he was doing obscene things with his tongue inside my ass. I whimpered. I cried. I came.
My body went limp, but he manhandled me into a sitting position and slapped that thick cock against my face a couple of times. When he pushed it against my lips, I opened my mouth but then turned my face trying to lick the taste away. "I'm not gay, you know."
"This wouldn't be nearly as much fun if you were. Now shut up and suck."
//END//
Endnote: Workshopped at the Fish Tank (http://www.desdmona.com).