Lately, our TV and computer screens have been filled with warnings about COVID-19. “Stay indoors!” say all sane heads of state and medical experts. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, has openly said she intends to be an “earworm” and “broken record” on this subject.

I’m somewhat surprised that no one has suggested replacing dating life (including open relationships) with masturbation. Why not? Apparently self-stimulation boosts the immune system, and it obviously doesn’t result in unwanted pregnancies or further the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases.

No amount of social isolation can prevent people from masturbating. Even couples who are isolated together could probably use some alone-time to vary their routine.

In the aftermath of the “Me Too” movement, when some men are claiming to be confused about what women want (when will this question be retired?), masturbation could be considered the ultimate example of joyfully enthusiastic sex. No one (who isn’t a porn star) masturbates simply to keep a job or to avoid worse treatment by someone else.

If the standard way to approach another person for sex included the questions “Would you like to fool around?” and then “How would you like to fool around?” or “What do you like?” misunderstandings could be avoided.

The fact that women masturbate, combined with the fact that most women, when asked, will complain about unwanted sexual attention (harassment or abuse) can be taken to mean that sex, per se, is not the problem. Most people like sex in some form. Anyone who claims to be bewildered by women’s objections to being groped in an office should consider the differences between that kind of sexual attention and the kind that can be safely given to oneself in private space, the kind which doesn’t damage one’s job performance, employment status, reputation, or self-image.

So why is masturbation not being promoted as an almost miraculous cure for numerous ills?

Consider the departure of Dr. Joycelyn Elders from her position as Surgeon-General of the U.S. in 1994. She was the first African-American woman in that post, and she was fired for an increasingly sensible series of comments about sexual health that included support for reproductive choice (or against “fetishizing fetuses”), and an ultimate punch line that masturbation should be MENTIONED in public school sex-ed as a sexual option which is safer than sex with other people. (She could have added that this is especially true if you are a horny fifteen-year-old whose likeliest sex partner is another kid in your grade.) When this comment was greeted with a storm of protest, Elders clarified that she never advised teachers to tell students HOW to masturbate, only that it was a viable alternative to experimenting with someone else.

At that point, President Bill Clinton asked her to resign, probably because he thought she was alienating some of his voter-base. Oh, the irony.

When I googled the term “masturbation,” I found an encouraging series of on-line articles which assure the reader that it is a normal, healthy activity. Luckily, medical authorities are no longer warning the public that masturbation leads to a loss of “vital fluid” and can result in death. This belief reached its peak in the mid-Victorian Age, or about 1850, but it was included in medical literature about sex as late as the 1930s.

In the midst of all the articles that quietly accept masturbation as simply one sexual activity out of many, here is the official Catholic warning:

“Masturbation is the act or practice of the self-stimulation of one’s sexual organs. It is usually done with the goal of achieving sexual climax, sexual gratification, or the release of sexual tension. Although masturbation exists among both males and females, it is generally considered more common among men than women (Leitenberg et al. 1999, 87-98). Although the term mutual masturbation is used in reference to mutual acts of sexual stimulation, the following discussion considers masturbation only according to its more common meaning: namely, the self-stimulation of the sexual organs.

The Church’s Teaching

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches that the sexual function is meant by God to be enjoyed in “the total meaning of mutual self-giving” (CCC, n. 2352) within the marital relationship of a man and a woman. The Church understands the purposes of sexuality to be the begetting of children and the mutual pleasure for building the couple’s unity. Therefore, any deliberate activation of the sexual function outside the proper state of marriage and the purposes noted is seriously inordinate; if done voluntarily and knowingly, it is sinful. Within marriage such self- or mutual-stimulation is moral only when in some way it prepares for or completes a natural act of sexual intercourse.”

Here is the link:

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/marriage-and-family/sexuality/masturbation.html

So there you have it: masturbation is considered sinful because all sexual desire is supposed to be channelled into sex within heterosexual marriage for the purpose of begetting children. Never mind whether you’ve had sixteen already. If you really can’t afford yet another pregnancy, you’re simply supposed to abstain from sex altogether.

I’ll leave you to consider whether this policy leads to personal happiness or social harmony in a world which is already overcrowded, and in which providing the necessities of life for even one child is impossible for some people.

A documentary on the subject with a catchy title (“Sticky”) was made in February 2016, and it explores the silencing of Dr. Elders to placate conservative voters. It also includes the endorsement of masturbation by several celebrities, which undoubtedly confirms the opinion of some concerned parents that the Hollywood film industry is a bad influence on impressionable children.

I’m tempted to quibble with the title of this film on grounds that in my experience, self-lubrication is actually more slimy (like the raw contents of an egg) than sticky like candy or sugary soft drinks. However, that’s a small quibble.

Here is one anonymous reviewer’s summary of Sticky: A (Self) Love Story, directed by Nicholas Tana:

“STICKY follows one filmmaker’s attempt to understand why masturbation is something most everyone does, but few like to admit to doing. Shamed as a child by fellow students through interviews with sexologists, authors, religious figures, porn stars, and entertainers, what’s so wrong with masturbation? The film takes a hard look at our touchy relationship with touching ourselves throughout history, and explores the negative ways in which masturbation is portrayed in the media. From the FBI study linking compulsive masturbation to serial killers, to the tragic death of a child who committed suicide after being caught masturbating, STICKY pulls no punches in exploring a subject that touches us all.”

Here is a link to the trailer:

Trailer: m.youtube.com/watch?v=AxfVS_z1JX4

(Sorry I lack the technical skills to embed a snippet here.)

I’m tempted to follow up with an excerpt on self-love from one of my own stories, but this post is probably long enough already. I hope I’ve provided some food for, um, thought.

I’ll just let you go do something even more stimulating than reading the ERWA blog.

I’ve celebrated the new year twice this month: first at the New Year’s Eve bash at the community-run LGBTQ club in my town, where my spouse Mirtha and I spent an afternoon chopping vegetables for the midnight buffet, and then at a Chinese New Year banquet in a local Chinese restaurant, where spouse and I were invited by a Chinese friend. (As paying guests, we dined luxuriously.) In the Christian reckoning, we are in the year 2020 since the birth of Christ, but in the Chinese reckoning, we are in the year 4718, the Year of the Metal Rat.

Aside from the ongoing disaster of world politics and climate change, I’ve wondered whether the year 2020 (or the brand-new Year of the Rat) has a different theme or flavour from any previous year.

If you didn’t consciously know that a “new year” had begun in the middle of winter, would you be able to feel something new in the air?

The theme I’ve noticed in my own life could be called “recycling.” Old things tend to return with a new twist.

For example, I’m still teaching first-year English courses in the local university, as I have for the past thirty years, but every time I meet a new class in early January, there is a different atmosphere in the room. This is probably why Show Biz never gets stale for some performers: no two audiences are exactly alike. I try to vary my course outlines from one semester to the next so as not to get burned-out, but certain basics always have to be covered. No matter how many times I explain the relationship of a subject and a verb, or the significance of an epiphany in a work of fiction, I never get tired of watching the look of discovery in the eyes of certain students. The best epiphanies happen on the spot, in real time.

Then there is the withdrawal of a royal couple from the Royal Family of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. The decision of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan (still the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, although no longer their Royal Highnesses) to escape to Canada has been compared to other abdications, which were supposedly shocking.

Personally, I’m not shocked. I’ve seen examples of the snark aimed at the Duchess by the British media, and I doubt if I could just ignore it either. This is essentially the same snark that was formerly aimed at Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, until she split up with her husband, Prince Andrew, and then at Princess Kate, a.k.a. the Duchess of Cambridge, until a new victim appeared on the scene. Note that while “Fergie” was judged to be too fat, Kate Middleton was judged to be thin, waif-like and undignified. And could complaints about the vulgarity of Duchess Meghan have anything to do with racism? Not according to those who claim that she simply doesn’t know how to behave.

Most objections to the monarchy as an outdated institution seem logical to me, but firing darts at relatively harmless individuals, especially women who were not born into royal families, is just nasty. I’m reminded of the French porn that was written about Marie Antoinette, the last Queen Consort of France, before she and her husband, Louis XVI, were beheaded during the French Revolution. Apparently some anti-monarchists could find no better way to attack the Ancien Regime than by claiming that La Reine was a nympho who couldn’t get enough.

Now, in 2020, I feel mildly pleased that the newly-escaped royal couple plan to settle in Victoria, a small city on Vancouver Island off the west coast of Canada, which has been luring British expatriates for generations. I found out last year that a group of retired academics from the prairie university where I currently teach have settled in Victoria, and meet regularly for lunch. I was told that Mirtha and I will be welcome to join this group if/when we escape the harsh prairie climate to enjoy the gentle rain of Victoria in our old age. So there is a chance that someday, I might pass by the Duke and Duchess on the street, or even meet them through mutual acquaintances. Or maybe not. The prospect doesn’t keep me awake at night.

I’ve been warned in the press that Canadian taxpayers will probably have to pay for the security of the Duke and Duchess, but this was always the case during royal visits anyway. I can think of better things to worry about.

Then there is the imminent release of my revised novel, Prairie Gothic. I wrote the first version in 1998, before I even joined the Erotic Readers Association, as it was called then. It featured a lot of sex, mostly between women, and a network of relationships in a “gay” community based on the one I knew. The novel was divided into nine rambling chapters. For some reason, it was accepted for e-publication by Roy Larkin, then a member of Erotic Readers, who wrote BDSM erotica under the name “Laurie Mann,” and ran an on-line publishing company, Amatory Ink. After complaining that good material was hard to find, he closed shop in 2006, which meant that my novel was no longer available to paying customers. I tried submitting excerpts, repackaged as erotic stories, to editors of anthologies such as Best Lesbian Erotica, with no luck. I let the novel gather virtual dust on my hard-drive.

During my sabbatical year, 2016-17, I decided that I needed to take another look at Prairie Gothic, and decide whether it was worth saving. I was amazed at my own chutzpah in writing a novel when I really didn’t know how, but I was also somewhat surprised by the novel’s good bones. On rereading scenes that I had almost forgotten writing, I could feel the energy in them.

I also noticed that my narrative of the 1990s had a complete lack of visible computer technology. The characters can’t contact each other by cell-phone, nor do they meet in on-line dating sites. The only way they know to find a same-sex date is by going to the obscure local “gay” bar. (In real life, some male regulars objected when “lesbian” was officially added to the name of the elected board that ran the bar. Such exotica as transpeople or a non-binary crowd seemed literally unthinkable, while self-proclaimed bisexuals were seen as gay but shifty with it.) The way my characters find sexy reading-matter is by going to an actual store called “Dirty Harry’s.” The retro flavour also came from the incorporation of some real-life local scandals: the destruction of the local Conservative Party in a series of trials for financial corruption plus a lurid murder trial which I attended because the two young male killers were friends of my teenage daughter.

In short, I came to realize that my raunchy novel had become historical fiction. I decided to keep it that way, and add the subtitle: “A Tale of the Old Millennium.” I revised the story substantially and divided it into 22 chapters while adding 10,000 words. Strangely enough, the fear of some of my characters that the world might end in “Y2K,” the year 2000, seems current, since fear of a coming Apocalypse is still with us. Do we have until 2025 to enjoy our unsustainable lifestyles? It’s debatable.

I now have a proof copy of the new version of Prairie Gothic from Lethe Press, the new publisher. I need to go over it with a fine-tooth comb, and add some acknowledgements. I can hardly wait to see this piece as an actual book that I can hold in my hands for the first time.

During my winter holiday break from teaching, I have time to ponder sexual mysteries that I feel I should understand better. In my former column on this site, “Sex Is All Metaphors,” I talked about the amazing versatility of sex as a language to express almost anything: love, affection, gratitude, curiosity, disgust, even genocidal hatred.

The problem with most discussions about sex is that they simply can’t do justice to the full spectrum of sexual behaviour among human beings.

Complaints about sexual harassment (which someone once described as the intrusion of sex into non-sexual situations) trigger a backlash response of “But what’s wrong with flirting?” I often wish we could all live in the kind of fun world in which this response would make sense.

Men have often lamented to me personally and to larger audiences that it’s hard to get women to “loosen up” because they don’t have the same sexual needs that men have. I suspect that such men have no idea what a tidal wave of lust would be released if women could express themselves sexually without risking drastic consequences: unwanted pregnancies, diseases, loss of relationships, social status, income, and even life.

This brings me to the mystery of rape, legally defined as “sexual assault” in Canada, where I live. I’m not confused about the fact that it happens. I’ve heard explanations of why assailants, mostly male-identified, feel they have no other choice than to take what they want by force. I’m mystified about why forced sex would feel better for the perpetrator than consensual sex, when that is an option. And it always is.

Despite the double standard of sexual morality, which still seems to exist even in the most avant-garde urban milieu, there are places where heterosexual men can find heterosexual women who are willing to hook up. Nowadays, there are also places where the LGBT community can meet and mingle, even in small towns on the Canadian prairies.

All this was true even before the rise of the internet, which has been steadily eclipsing physical cruising spaces and watering-holes.

Finding a mate for an hour, for the night, for a few weeks, or possibly for a lifetime is probably easier for more people on earth than ever before in history. In cultures where few people can afford to buy their own computers, there are internet cafes where anyone can access a dating site. And hanging out at the café is a social experience in itself.

It truly amazes me that there are still young men who invoke a tragic image of themselves as haggard waifs, crawling through a sexual desert alone, because what they need is not available to them. And some of these guys admit to spending many hours a day on-line, communicating with other people.

Years ago, a man I went to high school with told me it was hard to know whether women were interested in sex with him or not. I asked him if he had ever invited a woman out for coffee, lunch, or dinner. He said yes, of course.

I asked how he responded to a refusal, and I proposed two scenarios: the man could express disappointment and say, “maybe we can do this another time.”

Or he could become enraged, wrestle the woman to the ground, pull out a sausage, force her mouth open, and shove the meat as far down her throat as possible, while giving her any of these messages:

1) “You don’t say no to me, stupid bitch.”

2) “I know you want this. You’re just playing hard to get.”

3)” I know you’re a slut who likes to eat. I’ve seen you doing it in public, with other eaters.”

4) “If you didn’t want it, why did you lead me on by talking about food?”

Meanwhile, the victim would be choking, gasping for breath, and desperately trying to push the assailant off or attract help.

I asked my old high-school classmate which of these scenarios seemed the most logical. He laughed and said that accepting disappointment gracefully was the only sane course of action for the man. The sausage-down-the-throat image sounded like a description of a psychopath at work.

Well, yes, at least we agreed on that. But I was still left wondering what would motivate anyone to force sex on anyone else.

“Rape” fantasies and consensual scenes seem like a completely different topic. I even remember being impressed by a description of an elaborate abduction scene involving willing (eager) “victims” and lusty pirates on a real ship. Clearly, a scene like this required considerable preparation beforehand, including negotiations about bondage, knifeplay, and flogging. This sounded to me like a grown-up version of a childhood game based on Peter Pan. I hope it was exhilarating for everyone involved. I didn’t wonder why anyone would sign up for this adventure, as long as personal limits would be respected.

As an English major in university, I studied numerous works of fiction in which an angry man is presumed to represent the Human Condition, or sometimes the Modern Human Condition under Late-Stage Capitalism. Male profs have invited me and the other students (usually a diverse mix of genders and races) to consider the likelihood that we all have dangerously aggressive impulses that we have to control in order to stay out of jail, including the impulse to just grab and rape any attractive person we see.

My short response: No. My longer response: Hell, no.

As a much younger, closeted lesbian, I sometimes tentatively suggested to female friends that some women go “beyond friendship.”

I usually had to explain that I was thinking of physical activity that went beyond a hug. Or to put it bluntly, sex.

One woman responding by saying, “That’s disgusting.”

Her disgust was so instantly contagious that I couldn’t imagine pressuring her any further to accept what I was hinting at. I couldn’t be sure whether she found me disgusting on a personal level, or whether she was appalled by the mere idea of making close acquaintance with another woman’s plumbing. It didn’t matter to me. I knew I would have to go find someone more compatible.

I wanted the combination of direct and vicarious pleasure that happens when two people want each other, and love being wanted. I wanted the ambiguity of simple but effective comments like “Oh, baby.” I wanted someone to want my breasts and my clit as well as my fingers on their own deliciously sensitive parts.

Later, I tried dreaming about forcing myself on another woman to try to figure out why this might be satisfying. I imagined a scenario just before falling asleep, hoping that my deepest urges would rise up and answer my question.

As far as I could remember the next morning, the rape scene just didn’t work. In my dream, I kept threatening to humiliate someone who clearly didn’t want me, and who turned me off by repeatedly telling me this. I didn’t really want to touch her, and before long, this became obvious to her as well as to me. Even in the privacy of my own mind, I let my designated victim get away.

So the concept of really non-consensual “sex” is still a mystery to me, and even calling it sex seems inaccurate, because for me, that word summons up feelings and images of mutual consent, agency, and interaction.

It seems I will never be able to write a story about sexual assault from the assailant’s viewpoint. I’m still not sure if this means I’m hopelessly naïve or relatively sane.

June is Pride Month throughout North America and much of Europe. This is when the Lesbian/Gay/Transgender/Bisexual/2-Spirit/Non-binary community commemorates several hot nights in June 1969 when a sketchy gay bar (and they were all considered sketchy then) in New York City, the Stonewall Inn, was raided by the police. This was a fairly regular event in those days, but this time, the bar regulars resisted arrest and fought back. The “Stonewall Riots,” as they came to be called, are now considered the trigger that started the “gay rights”movement.

My Chilean-born spouse and I watched the rainbow flag being raised at the legislature of the province of Saskatchewan for Pride Month, and we also watched a similar flag-raising in front of the city hall of Regina, the small capital city where we live. We rode on a float in our local Pride parade. I posted numerous photos to Facebook under my full name, Jean Roberta Hillabold.

After a ten-day “Pride Week” had ended in Regina, we were passengers in our friend’s car when four of us went to Saskatoon, the other small city or large town in Saskatchewan, for THEIR Pride parade. Although Regina and Saskatoon have traditionally been rival cities, the organizing committees that plan Pride Weeks in both places always arrange to schedule them one after the other so that anyone who likes to travel can enjoy at least two weeks of Pride.

However, we weren’t all going to Saskatoon so we could party for another week. We were bringing a gay refugee to the nearest office of the government of Canada where refugees need to apply for official status, and permission to stay in Canada indefinitely.

Ramon, as I’ll call him, is from El Salvador. He just turned 28 during Pride Week in Regina. He says he finished secondary school in his country, but my Spanish-speaking spouse doubts it, based on the things he says and the way he says them. We first met Ramon several months ago, when he was brought to Regina by an international development organization. He told us he was afraid for his life, but felt he had to go back. Since then, he has kept in touch with my spouse Mirtha by telefono and correo electronico (email).

About two weeks ago, Ramon sounded desperate, so we bought him a round-trip plane ticket and arranged for him to be a visiting speaker at a Pride Week event, with Mirtha as translator. This was his official reason for entering Canada.

Ramon has been in our guest bedroom ever since, and we hope we can help him start a new life here. He told us that his own father threatened to kill him, and an American woman hid him in her house for six months because it was no longer safe for him to go to his paid job for a Salvadorean organization that educates people about AIDS. (As far as we know, Ramon is healthy.) Apparently his American friend thought he should stay in his country and fight the macho, Catholic homophobia. Mirtha and I believe that live activists, even those in exile, can do more good than dead ones.

Little by little, things are falling into place. We discovered that the friend who drove us to Saskatoon has experience in helping refugees navigate the system. A local “affirming” (queer-accepting) church has offered help. Someone already offered Ramon a job, which he can’t legally accept until he has legal permission to work in Canada. On that note, I recently got a nice raise from the university where I teach, so Mirtha and I have no problem supporting Ramon. I need to work on my Spanish, and having to converse with Ramon is very motivating.

Now that Pride Month celebrations have become huge, corporate-sponsored tourist attractions in the U.S. and Canada, it’s easy to forget how dangerous it is in many countries to be anything other than heterosexual and monogamous, preferably married with children.

I often wish that Mirtha and I could afford to rescue all the people who are persecuted for being any shade of queer, for marrying against their parents’ wishes, for having sex lives that aren’t considered acceptable in their homeland. For women in extremely male-dominated countries, any kind of sexual experience is likely to damage their reputations beyond repair, and make them targets of violence.

If everyone who can afford to host one refugee of sexually-based persecution would do so, this would relieve some of the pressure at national borders. Of course, conservative sexual values don’t account for all the human suffering that drives people into exile, but it does account for a lot. Do you think that corrupt military regimes and horrifying violations of human rights flourish in countries where women have considerable political power because they can lead independent lives without being condemned as whores? (Time will tell whether the gathering political resistance of American women will overturn the current reign of the right wing in the U.S.)

I’m celebrating something else this month: the release of my latest collection of lesbian short stories, Spring Fever and Other Sapphic Encounters. Most of these fourteen stories first appeared in various romantic and erotic anthologies, but some are virgins, never seen in public before. So far, this book is only available for Kindle, but I hope it can eventually appear in other formats, possibly including paper.

Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T91FCFC/

There has been so much bad news in the media in the past few months that lust sometimes feels irrelevant.

Both the U.K. and the U.S. seem to be in full meltdown, and Canada’s government/corporate scandal shows that it’s not far behind. The Canadian Prime Minister (Justin Trudeau, son of a former P.M.)  and his wife might still be the most photogenic First Couple on the planet, but appearances can be deceiving. Trudeau’s harassment of two high-level middle-aged female ministers for failing to put party loyalty above respect for the law has tarnished his image as a libertarian, and will probably drive voters away from the currently-ruling Liberal Party. The collapse of a traditionally left-of-centre party could pave the way for more conservatism, less environmental protection, and a more open war on all demographics that are not rich heterosexual white men.

We are not living in a sexy time.

Social media in general seem to be shrieking, “Do something! Sign a petition, donate to a cause, go to a demonstration, write to your political representative!” What usually isn’t said directly is that spending an afternoon in bed with your sweetie—or a few playmates—is the height of irresponsibility. And this is the leftist position.

The anti-sex position of the right wing is usually clearer. Conservative spokespeople tell us that no one is really transgendered, that gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, polyamorists, fetishists, and anyone who is any flavour of BDSM all need to be locked up or reprogrammed for the good of society at large. Women of child-bearing age are being told they should only have marital sex with men, and risk pregnancy every time. Since men are not being held responsible for the babies they father, the possible consequences of unprotected sex are almost guaranteed to turn women off.

I assume that few conservative white men of any age are attracted to women of my vintage (over 65), but they would be appalled to learn that we can have sex lives without them. As Lisabet Sarai, mentioned here lately, sexual feelings in older folks are widely considered icky.

The current zeitgeist feels like a continuous cold shower, interspersed with saunas in hell. No one can live like this all time. As mammals, we need pleasure in various forms just as we need air to breathe.

Sex-writers, in particular, need to remind ourselves of what sex feels like in order to describe it authentically. If we are women, we need to imagine being wanted without being hated, and having our own desire accepted without blame.

I keep a list of calls-for-submissions, and I know that several deadlines for important anthologies and theme issues will whoosh past me before I will be able to write something suitably sexy. Conjuring up joyful, mutual sex is easier for me if I imagine it happening in the Temple of the Loving Goddess in the far-distant past or future, someplace far removed from today’s world. However, not all editors are looking for speculative fiction.

In a happier time, at least for me, I wrote “A Striking Dilemma,” a story about a three-way relationship of two young ladies and their gentleman friend in the late Victorian Age. That was definitely not a sex-friendly era either, but the jolly lovers in my story have enough privilege that they can make their arrangement appear respectable from the outside. This story is included in the second ERWA anthology, Twisted Sheets: Tales of Sizzling Menage, which has been selling well. Here is a taste:

I shook my tresses free, wondering if I looked like a madwoman in an opera.

     Lizzie unlaced my corset before I could do it myself. My small breasts popped into view, and I could see that my nipples were already hard. They looked very pink against my pale skin, but then one of them disappeared into Lizzie’s hot, wet mouth. “Oh!” I gasped. My uncontrolled response inspired her to apply a mercilessly firm tongue to my flesh. The heat of her mouth, and her persistent attention, sent moisture to my neglected cleft.

     Liz heartily sucked my nipple, then gently pulled it with her teeth before suddenly exposing it to the cool air. I looked down and saw it stretched to an amazing length, as if it were made of gutta percha.

     “Aha,” she muttered, as if to herself. I could feel my face grow warm. She liked to make me blush, and my awareness of her goal always guaranteed that she would get her wish. She tugged on my remaining underthings, and I obligingly pulled them off. I stepped out of my petticoat, and left it in a heap on the carpet.

“My girl,” she said approvingly, smiling at the sight I presented. “You’ll still look like a nymph to tempt the ancient gods when all the professional beauties of our time have become fat old women. How many times do I have to show you how beautiful you are?”

     I considered her question. “As many times as it takes,” I answered.

     Lizzie took my response as a dare. I let out a muffled squeak when she lifted me up. She held me firmly, despite my wriggling, and carried me into her boudoir, where she laid me on the counterpane that covered her bed. She had never carried me so far before. I realized that her passion for sports – badminton, archery, riding, and shooting – had given her Amazonian strength and endurance.

     There was a quiet knock at the door. Before Lizzie could attend to it, I heard a key turning in the lock. She strode purposefully into the hallway to greet him. “Henry!” She didn’t sound at all pleased, even though she had impulsively given him his key as a birthday gift two years before.

     I thought briefly of hiding under Lizzie’s bed, but then I realised how childish that would seem. I decided that a mature woman would accept the role of fellow-hostess. I wrapped myself in my clothes, as though in a blanket, and walked in bare feet to the hallway, where I stood beside her. I could guess how ridiculous I looked. Henry had seen me and Lizzie in various states of dress and undress, but never had he seen either of us completely naked.

     “Henry,” I said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

Our young man looked as mischievous as usual. He doffed his hat, laid it on the parlour table, and approached us at once.

     “I beg your pardon, ladies,” he said, almost laughing aloud. “I do hope I’ve interrupted something.” His brown eyes shone with merriment. “Ruth, please don’t feel embarrassed. I know that you and our Elizabeth have an intimacy that men may only wonder at. The games of love are entirely natural.”

——————-

Henry is right, of course, and apparently our readers agree with him. I recently got a surprisingly large quarterly royalty payment for my stories that are selling on the on-line platform Excessica, including my collection of five stories about a Dominant English prof, Dr. Athena Chalkdust, my story about the conception of King Arthur, (Under the Sign of the Dragon) and my stories in the two anthologies from ERWA (Erotic Readers and Writers Association).

Maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel.