Behaving Badly

I took a challenge from a man to write a little erotica.  Sure, I can do that.  I have a lifetime of sex, good and bad, and scandalous behavior, and too many men, and some very crazy women to draw on.  I have been pursued by both men and women.  And though now I may sound like the kind of woman who always knew what she would do and what she wouldn't do, life isn't always so simple as yes to this and no to that.  I might pull a gun on a married man who wouldn't leave me alone, and turn around to passively accept from another man what seems now, in hind sight, like the worlds stupidest bad behavior.  I have actively participated in a three way with my significant other and another woman; a woman of my choosing.  Bad behavior, willingly engaged in.  And it ruined everything.  At least for a couple of years it did.  I became the woman who broke another woman's heart and made the man who wasn't sure whether or not he loved me jealous and insecure for the first time, maybe the first time in his life.

When I moved back to Salt Lake from Santa Barbara I started modeling again.  I was a known commodity here and had for decades known all the women in the fashion industry in Salt Lake from the models to the agents to the buyers, store owners, and fashion coordinators, so I had a head start.  The amazing thing was the change in the industry.  Older models were in demand for the first time ever and there weren't any in my age group working here then.  So I filled a niche.  I was in demand.  And I ran with the wild women.  They ranged in age from late twenties to late thirties and I was ten years older than the rest.  I was also the only one with a fairly large house and no husband to frown on our behavior.  So we did a lot of partying at my place.

And like any segment of the population some of us drank too much, did drugs, had reckless and naughty sex with the wrong people and talked about it.  The main difference is that we were great looking women.  So what I haven't done myself I've heard about in detail from each one of those women.  Some of the stories are legendary and the women in question notorious for having lived to tell those stories.  There were parties I didn't go to that were so outrageous and talked about so long that these stories have survived like famous jokes from legendary comics. I could write about those parties I didn't attend perhaps better than I could about things that happened in my own house, even in my own bed.  You see, I'm ambivalent about my own bad behavior, but not so much about someone else's.  But can I turn the me character into a woman who wasn't so ambivalent?  Can I give that character permission to enjoy her bad behavior more than I actually enjoyed my own, in point of fact?  Am I a fiction writer or am I a woman who writes nothing but memoir and only changes the characters names and hair color.  We shall see.

The first five chapters of The Masseur (a working title) were a breeze to write.  But the sixth chapter is the real beginning of the women behaving badly in a way most of you will say is pure fantasy, grotesque, just wrong, couldn't possibly have happened, so it must be fiction and not that believable as fiction.  But do some of the scenes turn you on, despite yourself?   That's the part that interests me.  Can I make these women real to you?   Can I make your naughty parts tingle a little in spite of your disapproval?  That's the challenge.

Is there an objective truth?  Does anyone really ever tell the complete truth about themselves?  Perhaps it's only when you stop telling your story and start make shit up that you get to the truth.  Is anything in the new book really fiction?  I'll let you be the judge of that.