Equal Opportunities
by Mathilde Madden

Review by Lisabet Sarai

Mary Taylor doesn't try to hide the fact that she's kinky. An ex-PR manager turned doctoral student and waitress, Mary has a toy chest filled with restraints, dildos and paddles, and the imagination to go with it. Nevertheless, there's one kink that even Mary doesn't advertise; she gets turned on by guys in wheelchairs.

When she spies beautiful, buff David wheeling himself around the library finding books for his mom, she just can't help following him home for a night of wild and definitely non-vanilla sex. Not that David complains; since his auto accident the year before, his sex life has consisted primarily of chats with anonymous cyber-sluts. Mary's reaction to his disability is lust rather than pity or disgust, and it's a welcome change. Meanwhile, David discovers that being helpless is surprisingly arousing, when he is in Mary's capable hands.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES is an original, competently written novel that breaks the Black Lace stereotypes. Ms. Madden alternates between Mary's and David's points of view, showing how what begins as a purely physical relationship becomes something more fundamental and complex. The first person narratives help to make both characters real. The minor characters are also skillfully drawn, especially Doctor Mercury, Mary's boozy, voyeuristic dissertation advisor.

Ms. Madden explores the misunderstandings, crossed signals, half truths and hidden guilts that occur in every real relationship, while highlighting the physical and psychological connection that binds Mary and David together. Their mutual obsession rings true.

David's disability and Mary's secret kink are a special obstacle, though, that most couples do not have to overcome. When a hospital staff member suggests that David may in fact recover and leave his wheelchair behind, Mary is forced to consider whether it's David she loves, or his helplessness. And David must deal with the crushing suspicion that he's merely a toy for satisfying Mary's freakish desires.

There is one way that EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES is consistent with the Black Lace formula; it offers many and varied sex scenes. Mary gets it on not only with David, but also with her co-worker Thomas, while David ends up shagging his physiotherapist in the handicapped bathroom. Much of the sex involves moderately intense D/s play. The penultimate scene is a lusciously decadent MMF three-some climaxing (so to speak) with Thomas sodomizing David.

As anyone who has read my own fiction would probably guess, these sexual scenarios are among my personal favorites. Somehow, though, I did not find EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES very arousing. I've tried to analyze why this was true. The sex scenes are reasonably well-written, imaginative, appealingly transgressive. Yet for the most part they left me cold.

My tentative conclusion is that Mary is too selfish and self-involved to be sympathetic. She is predatory in a way that makes me uncomfortable. She enjoys seeing David aroused, not for his sake, but because it makes her hot. In the sex scenes we see through her eyes, she is always slightly detached, planning her next move, setting up the scenes that turn her on. We never see her helpless in the face of lust, losing control, forgetting her schemes and strategies as she is swept away by passion.

In addition, she does not really demonstrate the empathy of a true dominant. She doesn't understand, in any depth, what David is thinking and feeling as she binds, teases and punishes him. My impression is that she doesn't really care.

Paradoxically, of course, this explanation testifies to Ms. Madden's skill in creating the character of Mary. Mary seems very real to me, and I don't like her very much.

Despite this criticism, I enjoyed reading EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES for its insight into relationships and the courage of its premise. Not many erotica writers would dare to create a protagonist who is flawed in the way David is. Most people tend to think of paraplegics and other severely disabled individuals as sexless, not only incapable of sexual activity but also uninterested in it. EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES challenges us to reconsider this assumption, to broaden our definition of what is or could be erotic. Personally, I find this admirable.

Lisabet Sarai
December/January 2007

Equal Opportunities by Mathilde Madden
(Virgin Black Lace; November 28, 2006; ISBN: 0352340703)
Available at: Amazon.com / Amazon UK

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© 2006 Lisabet Sarai. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

About the Author: Lisabet Sarai has been writing ever since she learned how to hold a pencil. She is the author of three erotic novels, Raw Silk, Incognito, and Ruby's Rules, and the co-editor, with S.F. Mayfair, of the anthology Sacred Exchange  (Blue Moon), which explores the spiritual aspects of BDSM relationships. Read Lisabet Sarai's bio on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association.
Visit her website, Lisabet Sarai's Fantasy Factory for more information and samples of her writing.

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