Back in August, I shared the first six pieces I wrote for the year-long Smut Marathon contest. Since then, two more rounds have come and gone, featuring 800- and 1000-word stories, and whittling the field down from 20 writers to 10.
Happily I’m still part of that field, after finishing 4th in Round 7 and 2nd in Round 8, my two best results of the competition to date. That’s no coincidence – while I enjoyed some of the earlier prompts, and turned in at least a couple of pieces I was pleased with, I always knew I’d do better once the word count started to rise.
Most of the fiction on my blog sits in the 800-1500 word range, because that’s what I’m most comfortable writing. Long enough for a few creative/linguistic flourishes, short enough that I don’t actually need to bother plotting out a proper story…or that’s how I think of it when I’m beating myself up for not writing better flash/long-form fiction, anyway.
My Round 7 story was a good example of that. Titled ‘Washed Clean’, it’s essentially a sex scene with hints of a wider story woven through it. At that length, I’m happier offering loose threads for the reader to worry and tug, rather than focusing too hard on tying everything together myself. Unsurprisingly, that was reflected in the feedback. One of the judges wrote the following:
I feel like I am missing the reference to the picture in this story, is it the mention of fence posts? Also the 3some seems to be rather out of the blue. Why is Ryan in their house and how comes everyone is up for this with no explanation?
…while Marie added this:
I would have loved to see a bit more reference to the picture, like maybe mention of the tree in the picture too and not only the fence. I love a good threesome, but maybe the onset to the threesome needed a bit more ‘explaining’.
And that’s valid! For some people, the threesome at the heart of my story will need more explaining, and in a fiction contest my rather vague allusion to the visual prompt won’t work for everyone. But that’s just how I like to write – erotica needs conflict and tension in order to work, and for me that’s often found in the unanswered questions that float between my characters.
Or in the sex I don’t show my readers. In Round 8, my story finishes before we really know what Marta and Nathan are going to do together. Just oral sex…or maybe more? Maybe much more. In the 1,000 words given to us by Marie and the judges, I could have written a full-on blow job scene, and ended with them coming back down the mountain. If you prefer your stories to have a beginning, a middle, and an orgasmic end, that might have offered a greater degree of narrative satisfaction – it may have been hotter too. And even with the 2nd-place finish, part of me still wishes I’d written it that way.
Because there’s a weird and occasionally frustrating tension in the way I write too. I often want to write more structurally conventional sex scenes – and sometimes I find my way to that place – but recently things always seem to get in the way. I get lost in the characters or the back story, or I decide that the dynamic underpinning the sex is more interesting than the ins and outs of the fucking itself.
I know I’m not the only smutty author to feel that way, and when I get it right, I’m confident in the quality of the work I produce…but it’s a fine line. In erotica, sex doesn’t have to be the main event, but it should never be an afterthought either. As in life, your job as a writer is to treat it with the respect it deserves.
In round 9, I took another stab at resolving that internal conflict. Entries are anonymous, so you’ll have to wait till next week to find out whether I succeeded, but I was pretty happy with the story I submitted and I hope it’s enough to get me through to the Final. Yes, I’m competitive, and yes, the prizes are great, but those aren’t the main reasons why I want to stay in. I’ve enjoyed Smut Marathon far more than I thought I would, it’s been good for my writing – not least because it’s forced me to produce at least one piece of fiction every 4-5 weeks – and with a juicy (2,000-word?) prompt still to come, frankly I don’t want the ride to end now.
Though as my characters regularly demonstrate, we don’t always get a choice on that one!
Round 7
Assignment:
Write a story where this image by Molly Moore is your inspiration. This means that somewhere in your story there should be a mention of this image.
Entry:
Washed Clean
“Go away – it’s too hot for sex.”
I rolled over and buried my face in the cooler side of the pillow. Greg sat on the bed, his weight pushing down the damp mattress behind me, and I curled tighter towards the wall. Too hot for sex, way too hot to deal with a boyfriend still sweat-streaked and heavy-limbed with exertion after his evening softball game.
Greg’s fingers found my hipbone as the first breeze for weeks drifted through our open window from the field outside.
“Doesn’t that depend on the sex?”
I turned to face him. Stripped to the waist, he stared down at me, a wet towel wrapped loosely round his neck. In the doorway, I saw his buddy Ryan – shortstop, wise-ass, childhood confidante – and waited for someone to show their hand.
Ryan took a half-step forward and gripped the bed-frame experimentally, as if testing the weight of whatever he was getting himself into. Greg pulled on my hip, spinning me round as if we were dancing salsa so he could fan a broad hand out across my stomach.
“Besides, I just want to kiss you.”
Sweat gathered under my breasts and in the dip of my collarbone as he bent down to brush his lips over mine. I tried to drag him onto me, but he pushed my arm aside and pinned it against the bed.
“Ryan wants to kiss you too. Don’t you, Ryan?”
I watched Ryan’s face fight an impulse to break out in nervous laughter. He thumbed the waistband of his shorts and raised an eyebrow, seeking approval.
I said nothing. Greg moved his hand slowly down the inside of my right thigh, and I felt each nick and callus on his stained fingers as they tugged at my skin. With little ceremony, he eased my legs further apart and looked up at Ryan.
“Show her.”
Ryan climbed round Greg onto the bed. His hair fell into his eyes and I fought the urge to reach up and brush it back. We weren’t teenagers any more. He circled a finger on the sole of my foot, smiling shyly when I wriggled against Greg’s hands.
The wind on my cheek grew stronger, and I glanced over to see clouds bunching outside the window. After weeks of dusty, unrelenting heat, any rain would bounce straight off the ground and flood out across the fields, washing the earth clean. My skin prickled at the thought of running through it, and feeling the water on my face.
Greg shifted his fingers, digging them into my knees and giving Ryan easy access to my cunt. He hovered inches from it, his breath hot even in the stuffy attic bedroom. I felt my back arch in anticipation, the sheet clinging to it as I thrust my pelvis out towards him. Like the first pull on an ice-cold beer, his tongue washed over me and the whole world shrank down to that one single point of contact.
It pushed inside me at first, unable to resist the simple pleasure of flesh-on-flesh. I knew Ryan would taste salt there, from the sweat that glistened on the crease of my thigh and maybe the last remnants of Greg’s cum, trapped there from our early morning fuck. I wanted to ask him how he felt about that. Where things stood between them – and where that might lead.
Most of all though, I willed him to glide his tongue over my labia and higher, taking in each soft fold. I wanted the barest contact between our bodies and Ryan obliged, pulling back, his brow furrowed in concentration till just the tip rested against my clit. A misty spray of rain blew through the window onto my breasts and I shivered. The water evaporated almost instantly, swallowed by a heat that warmed my skin from the inside out.
Ryan’s tongue barely moved, lapping back and forth over my clit as I tensed my legs and felt Greg grip me tighter in response. My cunt clenched and I cleared my throat, ready to ask for something – anything – inside me, but one look at their faces made the words die on my lips. I wanted them to have this, whatever it was. Everything else could wait till later.
I turned away again and gazed out towards the fence posts at the bottom of our field. I counted them in turn, letting my conscious mind fall silent as Ryan coaxed me closer to orgasm. When the first spark of electricity flickered from my body to his, I pulled the bedsheet up into my balled fists and screamed in silence at the gathering storm outside.
Ryan fell back and Greg pulled him into a fierce hug. I sat up and kissed them both.
“You’re right. It depends on the sex.”
Round 8
Assignment:
A man and a woman (strangers to each other) are stuck in a lift for hours.
What happens while they are there? What do they say? What do they do?
Please use at least 30% of dialogue in your story and for this round no scenes that can be classified as BDSM.
Entry:
Say It Out Loud
“I fucking hate my sister. She’s a selfish cow who’s lived off our parents for years without lifting a finger to help them out.”
“I fired someone because deep down I knew he was better at his job than I’ve ever been. It was kill or be killed – if I hadn’t pushed him out, he’d be my boss by now.”
“I cheated on my husband last summer. It only happened once, but it was the best sex I’ve had in 20 years. He still doesn’t know.”
“Sometimes I wish I’d never had kids.”
I paused for breath, and slumped against the ski lift’s cold plastic seat. Even in gloves so padded and bulky I had to take them off to scratch my nose, I could feel my fingers slowly going numb. Marta grinned across at me, then followed my gaze as I turned to stare out of the plexiglass window.
“Christ. It’s hard to believe there’s another living soul within 100 miles of here.”
Our gondola rocked gently in the frozen night sky. When I’d jumped in for one last trip up the mountain before the lift closed for the night, the attendant had been flirting with a young Austrian snowboarder; two hours later I clung to the hope that he’d seen us, but with each passing minute my composure and certainty were draining away.
“Come on, Nathan. There must be more.”
Finally she closed the book and stared at me.
“Está tan oscuro afuera. ¿Qué pasa si somos los únicos aquí?”
I shrugged an apology, unable to match anything she’d said to the fuzzy mental image of my high-school Spanish textbook. However, once she switched to near-flawless English (“my husband is American – sometimes I think my English is better than his”), words seemed to tumble out into the space between us.
Her: Marta. 44. Musician (“I teach the violin for no money and play it for even less”). Basque not Spanish. Catholic (pause – “very lapsed”, with a throaty laugh).
Me: Nathan. 35. Advertising (“but not the shitty, shiny-suit kind”). Two kids and a scary mortgage. Wondering where the hell 10 years went.
Talking didn’t make the late-January air any warmer, nor did it stop me checking my watch every 30 seconds to see how long we’d been suspended high above the gleaming white slopes. However, as Marta told me about her new puppy (“oh God, he shits everywhere“) and cooed appreciatively over the family photos I scrolled through on my phone, it did at least feel like we were in it together.
After warding off oppressive silence for a full hour, we both paused, suddenly unsure where to go next. Marta shifted in her seat and pressed the tip of her boot against my shin.
“No-one else can hear us up here, you know. We could say anything to each other. All the things we carry around with us. All the things we’re scared to let out.”
I kicked her back, flexing my toes to get some blood flowing through them.
“Sure, that could be fun. You go first.”
“Please. Don’t stop now.”
“When we were teenagers, I used to suck my best friend’s cock. I did it for the first time in 15 years at his wife’s birthday party last month. He’s convinced she saw nothing, but the way she looks at me…if I didn’t know better, I’d say she gets off on it.”
“I bet she does. I would.”
I looked down to see one of Marta’s gloves on the metal floor. She slipped her fingers under mine and stroked my wrist. I watched the air fill with delicate clouds of breath I didn’t know we were holding.
“My turn.” Marta’s chin dipped, and a stray lock of jet-black hair escaped from under her bobble hat. I reached for it instinctively, brushing my thumb over her forehead as she spoke. “Joder! Ok. I’ve never had sex with a stranger, Nathan. I think I want to change that.”
For about 15 seconds, neither of us said another word. I slid my hand behind her ear and just held it there, my face inches from hers. I could feel my cock getting hard, pushing through my thin long johns against the rough fabric of salopettes I’d borrowed from my wife’s brother. I pushed that last thought firmly out of my mind.
Marta leaned forward and I pulled her head towards mine, anticipating her kiss. Instead she shook off my hand and wriggled down from her seat to kneel between my legs. My heart felt like it was going to burst through my jacket as she pushed me against the back rest and tugged at my zip.
Bundled up in my ski gear, I hadn’t realised how much the temperature had dropped, till the cold air hit my hard cock. My skin felt so sensitive that I almost came at the first careful drag of her hot tongue across the head. The gondola swayed in the wind as she wrapped her fingers round the shaft and moved it experimentally back and forth, her lips pursed together in a definite smirk.
“Yes Nathan – I think this will work.”
After so much fluent conversation, the noise that came out of my mouth as Marta slid hers down my cock was barely human. The world spun like I’d just stepped off a rollercoaster, and I thrust my hips up to meet her.
“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuuuuuuck.”
I still hoped the lift was just broken. That we’d get down before morning. But another hour or two trapped up there would be fine…