Signed, Sealed and Delivered

by Sierra Cartwright

Book Review by Lisabet Sarai

The training of a slave is a classic scenario in BDSM literature. Authors from Pauline Réage to Molly Weatherfield have detailed the painful progress of would-be submissives as they learn how to serve their masters. Sierra Cartwright's erotic romance Signed, Sealed And Delivered is a worthy contribution to this literary tradition.

Alana Simmons, a high-powered American businesswoman, knows what she wants. She has experimented with kink in clubs, at parties and in casual relationships, and found it exciting but ultimately unsatisfying. She knows that there must be more; she wants to experience real submission, real surrender. Direct as always, she uses her hacking skills to discover the private email of legendary British slave trainer Sir Ethan Kendall. She convinces the reclusive dominant to take her as an apprentice slave for a fortnight.

Signed, Sealed And Delivered begins with Alana's arrival in London. The initial scene had me clapping my hands with delight. She's forced to wait, nervous and uncertain, until long after all the other passengers have dispersed. Finally a stern, handsome man appears and orders her to give him her passport, return ticket and her formal letter agreeing to the training. Then he requires her to discard everything else that she has brought with her, including her expensive designer handbag. Alana finds her first lesson in obedience difficult indeed, especially when she learns that the man is not even Sir Ethan but only his trusted chauffeur Thomas.

Many tales of slave training focus on the physical trials inflicted on the slave: vicious beatings, painful immobility, humiliation, exposure, exploitation. Ms. Cartwright understands that, fundamentally, submission is not physical but psychological. As she illustrates in this wonderful first scene, the essence of submission involves letting go. The aspiring slave must learn to release everything—expectations, fears, inhibitions, privacy, personal desires—and trust her Master to lead her to greater knowledge and fulfillment.

Sir Ethan, the quintessential dominant, intuits what Alana needs even when she is blinded by fear, embarrassment or pure orneriness. He uses both physical and emotional tactics to strip away her defenses and open her to the true meaning of service. Signed, Sealed And Delivered includes plenty of hard-core scenes involving whips, paddles, canes, nipple clamps, butt plugs, gags, and all the other paraphernalia of BDSM. However, these props should not distract the reader from the personal interactions between Ethan and Alana as he strives to educate and enlighten her. He can be cold, mocking, or sadistic, glorying in her pain, but he never forgets that she chose to submit to him, and that he has a responsibility to deliver on his promises.

Ms. Cartwright paints Ethan as a commanding but enigmatic figure, introverted and morose after suffering a severe war injury that has left him partially crippled. He lives in his country house, alone save for Thomas, who is combination handyman, friend, lover and slave. Ethan is jaded, worn out by the process of training all the slaves in his past. When Alana contacts him, he is in retirement as a Dom. He agrees to train her with great reluctance.

Indeed, getting Alana to submit requires all his skill and ingenuity. Ms. Cartwright manages to steer clear of another stereotype in the slave training genre, the notion that someone is a natural dominant, "born to be mastered". Alana has a deep-seated desire to submit, but she's also stubborn, rebellious and amazingly hung-up for a woman with her supposed experience. (In particular, her resistance to female-female activity was a bit hard to believe.) Ethan and Thomas find Alana to be quite a challenge, a very different sort of woman from the slaves they have mentored in the past.

Gradually, Alana falls under Ethan's spell, learning to trust him, coming to achieve her greatest joy in pleasing him. It is, however, a rough road. In one of my favorite scenes, Ethan requires Alana to be observe the punishment of another slave, Celia. Celia, who has graduated from Ethan's school of servitude, is everything that Alana is not: graceful in her bonds, prompt in her obedience, genuinely grateful for her punishment. This sexy scene could have been written as pure titillation, as is so often the case in this sort of tale—oh, goody, a chance to have a nubile new body chastised and ravished, and with some girl-on-girl action to boot!—but the author makes it do double duty, allowing Alana to reflect on the differences between her own faulty submission and Celia's near-perfect surrender.

I was having a wonderful time reading Signed, Sealed And Delivered, seriously appreciating Ms. Cartwright's insight and subtlety. However, then the book ended abruptly, with a sudden flip in the direction of romance clichés that left me a bit disappointed. In my opinion, there are at least two missing chapters. The book needs a chapter in which Alana, nearing the end of her contracted fortnight, suffers acutely at the notion of returning to her empty, superficial previous life. After two weeks with Ethan, Alana is not the same woman who stood by the baggage carousel in Heathrow, expecting a spanking. She has become devoted to her Master; the thought of leaving him should be unbearably painful. The second chapter would show Sir Ethan struggling with his attachment to the headstrong but genuinely submissive American that he has promised to send home, and wondering how to reconcile his attraction with his principles as a stern Dom.

Instead of these critical transitions, Ms. Cartwright has a quick scene in which Alana tears up her contract and declares she's not going back to the States. Ethan and Thomas good-naturedly agree and they all jump into bed together in a traditional ménage à trois that has almost completely lost the edge that distinguishes power exchange relationships.

Despite this rushed and rather implausible conclusion, overall I found Signed, Sealed And Delivered to be intelligent and entertaining. The book is one of the first romance novels I've read that treats BDSM with the depth and respect that I believe it deserves. In a world awash with copycat tales that portray handcuffs and nipple clamps as nothing more than naughty toys, this is a significant achievement.

Lisabet Sarai
August 2008

Signed, Sealed And Delivered
(Total-E-Bound, eBook, 2008; ISBN 978-1-906590-10-9)
Available at: Totel-E-Bound

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; co-editor, with S.F. Mayfair, of the anthology Sacred Exchange  (Blue Moon); and editor of Cream, the Best of the Erotica Readers & Writers Association.
Visit her website, Lisabet Sarai's Fantasy Factory for more information and samples of her writing.
Join Lisabet's List on Yahoo for exciting chat, contests, and up-to-date information on publications and events: lisabets_list-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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