How to add conflict to your erotic story to make it more realistic and exciting

Drawing for the cover of my novel "Desencadenada". 

Let’s face it: most erotic stories are boring. The sexual images titillate us and that keeps us reading but, other than sex, not much is happening. You may add appealing characters, a nice setting and beautiful wording, but more often than not the reader will skip over the wordy parts to get to the good stuff. She is not interested in the story (because there is none!), just the sexy bits.

Most erotic stories are not interesting because they do not abide by the basic rules of fiction: there must be conflict, the conflict must drive the plot, and the plot must change the main characters in a significant way.

However, for many writers of erotica conflict is incompatible with sex because they think that conflict is the same as violence, and mixing violence with sex equals sexual abuse. And they don’t want to go there. Sex is supposed to be loving and peaceful, a way for people to connect. It should not be violent.

This is wrong on two counts. First, sex can be violent but no abusive. For example, in BDSM physical violence is combined with sex to make it more exciting. But, most important, conflict is not the same as violence. Hollywood has created this wrong idea by inundating us with movies full of fistfights, gunshots, car crashes and explosions. But, fortunately, life is not like that. And yet life is full of conflict.

This is particularly true when it comes to sex. In fact, most sexual acts have an element of conflict. We still live in a repressive society in which a lot of sex is done by breaking taboos, conventions, ethical rules, agreements with third parties, and even the law. Also, more often than not there is a mismatch between the desires, goals or emotional states of the participants during sex. Therefore, not only are our run-of-the-mill erotic stories boring, they are unrealistic because they offer an idealized vision of sex that rarely corresponds to reality.

In this, erotic stories are not very different from porn videos: the absence of conflict makes the sex unrealistic. Besides, if the appeal of our erotic story is based solely on sexual images, video will always be able to do it better. But if our story dwells into the experiences that happen inside the minds of the characters, we will be doing something that video cannot do.

There is also an opportunity to be educational. You can present as conflict a problem that you know how to solve. It could be questionable consent, homophobia, problems achieving orgasm, lack of communication, sexual shame, etc. The characters face the problem, experience distress, find a way to solve it, have great fun, and end up feeling great about the whole thing. Or you could write it in a dramatic key, showing how the inability of the characters to solve the problem leads to an unhappy ending.

Just like any other kind of fiction, erotica can be happy, dramatic or even tragic. It could also be written as humor. When you stop to think about it, sex is inherently funny, filled with undignified positions, embarrassing outcomes, and endless possibilities for slapstick accidents. The whole repertoire of humans emotions are brought into sex: joy, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, disgust, shame, guilt, indignation, disappointment, envy, jealousy, pride, empathy, compassion and, of course, love.

A critical decision is who is going to be the point of view character in your story. Avoid an omniscient narrator, that is, one who can move from the mind of one character to another. This distances the reader from the action, which is the last thing we want in erotica. What you want is the reader to slip inside the skin of one of the characters so that he or she can feel what the character is feeling. This is achieved using either the first person or a tight third-person narrative. Make sure to go frequently inside the mind of the character to describe her thoughts and emotions. Never create confusion about who is the point of view, especially at the beginning of the story. Usually, your point of view character is the one who experiences the conflicts the most and gets transformed at the end of the story.

And, please, don’t make your characters perfect! Only imperfect people can be transformed by what happens to them. Give them some flaws, this will also add some depth to them.

At this point, you probably have realized that there are endless possibilities to bring conflict into an erotic story. I list a few examples below. I classify them according to whether the source of conflict is external, in the relationship, or internal to one of the characters.

External sources of conflict 

The sexual attraction is so strong that these people are having sex against all odds and putting themselves in danger. Or maybe danger is the secret ingredient that makes sex so hot.

• Romeo and Juliet - the characters belong to antagonistic groups: families with ancient quarrels, nations at war, or opposing cultural tribes.
• The characters belong to different groups that make communication between them problematic, such as different races, social classes, political parties, nations, cultures, etc.
• Having sex in an unusual place where there is danger to be discovered: an elevator, a train, a plane, a beach, a park…
• Having sex in a dangerous place: underwater, in a rock-climbing route, in the snow, on a kayak in the middle of the sea, on a mountain top, in a dangerous neighborhood.
• The sex act breaks a societal taboo. For example, stories featuring incest, cheating, student-professor or boss-secretary relationships. Of course, you should consider the ethics of writing such a story and whether it may be targeted for censorship. 
• The sex is against the law. For example, a homosexual act in an Islamic country.
• Sex during a natural disaster: hurricane, earthquake, etc.

Sources of conflict in the relationship

Most couples have problems and those tend to surface when they have sex. And if the story is about casual sex, well, then the potential for conflict rises considerably, doesn’t it?

• Performance sex. Sometimes one of the persons wants a relationship much more than the other. Then sex may become an act of seduction to convince the reluctant partner that they would get a lot of pleasure out of the relationship. This creates a dynamic that can range from the comic to the tragic. 
• Problematic consent. I do not agree with the absolutist position that anything other than enthusiastic consent is rape. Ignoring the fact that there are borderline cases actually hinders the fight against rape. There are a lot of these gray areas and fiction is a great way of creating hypotheticals to explore the limits of what is ethical. Let’s face it, a lot of sex is not accepted enthusiastically and it is still OK. There is charity sex, service sex, sex to keep your spouse from looking for another lover, sex to get a job or a promotion, etc. Some of it is ethical, some is not. A story is a good way to get your readers thinking about it. 
• Jealousy and envy. A sex story may involve a threesome, in which case these pesky emotions are more likely than not to come up. How will your characters deal with them? Or will it all end up in disaster?
• Angry sex. A couple has a fight. Before the can make up, they are hard at doing it. In fact, the anger makes the sex even hotter. But how will they feel when they are done?
• Problems in achieving orgasms. There is much talk about the orgasm gap. All the cultural and political baggage that comes with this problem can be an excellent source of conflict and illustrate the values and beliefs of the writer. 
• Premature ejaculation and loss of erection are common problems in men. Just like with female orgasm, we should stop pretending that all goes well in sex all the time. Writing these problems into your story and still come out with hot sex can be challenging, but worth the effort. And, who knows, some of your readers may learn something from it.
• Ironically, sexual boredom in couples that that been together for a long time is also conflict. How will they rise to the challenge and make sex interesting? Will they be able to light their fire?

Internal sources of conflict

As I was writing my novels, I realized that internal conflict is the most beautiful kind of conflict. It is subtle and challenging to write, but if the protagonist is to change at the end of the story it would be through some kind of inner struggle. A writer who can show inner conflict will demonstrate his ability to understand the finest aspects of human nature. Fortunately, sex is one of the most common sources of inner conflict.

• Pent-up sexual desire. He had wanted her so bad, and now he is about to have her. Will this be a dream come true? Will he be disappointed? Or is his desire so crazy that he will spoil his chance?
• Internalized sexual repression or homophobia. Even these days, a lot of people have to struggle with these problems, particularly at the age of sexual awakening. Sexual shame and guilt surface unwanted and can become a major problem. Confronting them can lead to a spectacular transformation of our protagonist.
• Guilt. The protagonist may be doing something wrong, like cheating, so the guilt may be warranted but in conflict with a strong sexual attraction. The fact that he is willing to transgress illustrates to the reader how strong is his desire. Or, instead, the guilt may be irrational and anchored in her past, as I did in this passage from my first novel. 
• Shame very often accompanies sex. In the process of confronting it, the protagonist may learn something valuable about herself, about her partner and about sex.
• Disgust. I once dated a woman who had had her left leg amputated. She was very attractive, but the first time we had sex I looked at her stump and it was not a pretty sight. She noticed my feelings. You bet that our lovemaking was full of conflict, of which I learned some valuable lessons. 
• Prior sexual trauma. Unfortunately, this is more common than it is usually recognized. Anxiety and even panic attacks can show up during sex. Here is a great opportunity to show how empathy and compassion can be used to deal with these difficult situations. 

If your story is long fiction, perhaps a novel, it will be a good idea to interweave problems that are external, in the relationship and internal to create a beautiful tapestry of interrelated conflicts to drive the plot. After all, this is what happens in real life: the environment affects the relationship, and trouble in the couple awaken old problems and drive inner struggles.

Do not worry, adding conflict to your story will make it hotter. Taken by itself, sex is just pure mechanics. Even the kinkiest act is just a simple combination of body parts and motions. When sex becomes really exciting is when it means something, when it carries with it a lot of emotional baggage. This is what makes an erotic story exciting, and not boring.

Spicing up your scene with hot peppers

One of the nicest things about a spanking is the afterglow: the warm feeling in your buns after the job is done; the way they become exquisitely sensitive to the touch of the hand or the rub of the underwear; how it reminds you of your punishment when you are fucked doggie-style and his belly bangs against your bottom as his cock dives deep inside you. Surely, many spankees long for a way to make the afterglow last longer or even to make it more intense.

Well, such a method exist. It is based on the creative use of hot peppers or their active ingredient, a chemical called capsaicin. In this article I am going to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the science behind the wonderful effects of capsaicin. Then I am going to explain how to use hot peppers to enhance that afterglow feeling to such a level that it may make your spankee regret that you ever read this article.

The science of hot peppers and capsaicin

capsaicin molecule

Ever wondered why hot peppers are hot? Not all spicy food produces this burning sensation: garlic, onions, horseradish and wasabi also elicit a strong, sometimes unpleasant “spicy” sensation, but not of the burning kind. The burning sensation of hot peppers is caused by a single chemical, a molecule called capsaicin. Research started in the 90s unraveled why capsaicin makes you feel like you are burning without being actually burnt. Capsaicin, it turns out, binds to a protein called TRPV1 (transient receptor potential vanilloid 1, if you want to know) that is also activated by high temperatures. TRPV1 is present in a population of C-fibers, the nerves that transmit pain from the skin and other organs to the spinal cord. C-fibers with TRPV1 transmit burning pain, so when capsaicin activates TRPV1 it also feels like burning. Garlic, horseradish and wasabi activates a similar protein called TRPA1, which when activated also elicits pain but not a burning sensation. Yet another protein of the same family, TRPM8, is the receptor for menthol and produces the sensation of cold. That’s why menthol feels cool. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Now let’s go back to BDSM. You are being spanked and every slaps that lands on your bottom feels hot. After the spanking is over your buns stay warm for a while. Why? Does this has anything to do with TRPV1? Yes, it does. The impacts of the spanking cause a bit of damage in the dermis, the bottom layer of the skin, causing its cells to release some of the metabolites stored inside them, like ATP and glutamate. These activate receptors in the C-fibers (the pain nerves) which in turn release two neuropeptides, substance P and CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide, if you need to know), which make the capillaries swell with blood. This is why your bottom turns that nice red. It’s a process called inflammation, characterized by three things: pain, swelling and heat. Some of the released chemicals cause a bit of activation TRPV1, which is responsible for the heat component of the inflammation.

Hot peppers burn in your mouth, because mucosa skin is rich in TRPV1, but do not produce much burning in regular skin. However, if the skin is inflamed that’s a different story: the TRPV1 receptors are already primed by the inflammatory soup of chemicals released from the damaged cells, and capsaicin drives them through the roof. So, if you apply capsaicin to a well-spanked bottom, instead of a nice warm afterglow it will start feeling burning hot. Not only that, the skin will become very sensitive to touch, so a simple caress or the rub of underwear will now feel painfully hot. This is something similar to what happens with sunburn, another form of inflammation. The technical term for when the sensation of touch turns to pain is allodynia.

Is capsaicin dangerous?

By now, you are probably thinking: “do I really want to do this to my bottom?” Well, we do regularly eat capsaicin in the form of hot peppers, some people even in fairly large amounts, so if we are not concerned with putting it inside our bodies why should we be concerned with putting it on our skin? Needless to say, capsaicin makes your skin feels as it is burning, but it does not actually burn you. That is, it produces no tissue damage. Capsaicin is also sold over-the-counter as pain medication to treat arthritis, tendinitis and muscle pain. In comes in touch applicators containing a solution of up to 0.15% capsaicin.

The Scoville Scale of spiciness of chili peppers

However, capsaicin has also been weaponized in the form of pepper sprays like Mace, which contain from 0.18% to 3% capsaicin. It acts by producing a blinding inflammation of the eyes, burning in the skin, and coughing and difficulty breathing. In people with asthma, this can be deadly. Therefore, just handling capsaicin in a scene can pose a risk for both the top and the bottom. One thing to keep in mind is that capsaicin is not soluble in water and is very soluble in the fats of the skin, so it is almost impossible to wash away. Soap will not do the trick. It is soluble in alcohol, but you cannot apply alcohol to your eyes and I would not recommend putting it in your genitals. You could use a lotion rich in fat, but do not expect a complete wash-off.

What concerns me more about using capsaicin in the scene is that over time it can actually kill or blunt those C-fibers that contain TRPV1. This may be why capsaicin is used as a pain-killer. The end result could be that you develop an iron-butt: buttocks that can endure a good amount of abuse without much pain. You need to decide if this is something you want.

How to use capsaicin in the scene

You have a choice between using hot peppers or a capsaicin solution that you buy at the pharmacy (0.025% is a good dose if you want to start easy). Capsaicin solutions are easier to handle. Peppers are more natural, sexier and artsy. Personally, I prefer the peppers, so I will give instructions for their use, which can be easily adapted for capsaicin solutions.

What you need: a knife, a cutting board, disposable plastic gloves, cleaning wipes and paper towels. And, of course, chili peppers. I recommend green jalapeños, chile de árbol, or similar. Watch out for Thai peppers or habaneros, they are too hot!

Give the bottom a nice spanking on the bare buttocks. Keep in mind that the intensity of the burning sensation will depend as much on the strength of the spanking as the amount of capsaicin. Since the dose of capsaicin is difficult to adjust, especially if you use hot peppers, it is better to pay attention to the spanking. Which means, keep it light. In your first try don’t go beyond a nice uniform pink color on the butt. A five to ten minute spanking with medium intensity should be enough.

Put on the gloves. Using the knife and the cutting board, cut the peppers lengthwise. Get rid of the seeds, which have the larger amount of capsaicin and tend to get everywhere. Then, using your gloved hands, gently rub the peppers over the pink part of the skin. If you want to do this scientifically, you could use one buttock as the test (it gets the peppers) and the other as the control (no pepper). Be careful not to come close to the anus or the genitals (although the effect of capsaicin there is not as bad as you may expect, in my experience). Wait a couple of minutes, then use the cleaning wipes and paper towels to eliminate the remaining of the pepper juice from the skin. Leave your bottom to roast while you put away everything. Wear gloves throughout the process and wash your hands afterward, for good measure. But remember: anything that touches those buttocks may get capsaicin on it. Capsaicin has a nasty tendency to travel from the butt to your hands, and from there to your eyes.

The results

The bottom will become increasingly hot after five minutes or so. If the treatment is mild (light spanking, low dose of capsaicin), it will feel like an enhanced afterglow. With a strong treatment (hard spanking, lots of capsaicin), it will be definitely painful. The effects can last as long as 24 hours, peaking around 1-2 hours and then gradually decreasing. The worst (or best) part is the sensitivity to touch (allodynia), with some delightfully humiliating consequences. You can make the bottom feels being spanked just by putting a hand on the buns. Sitting may be extremely uncomfortable or impossible. So it will be wearing pants or underwear, a loosely-fitting skirt is advisable. All of this will probably turn-on your subject, making her excited and horny. You should plan for a sub-space lasting many hours and take advantage of all the wonderful side effects. For example, fucking her doggy-style will add a jolt of searing pain at the end of every thrust. (I have tried to keep all this gender-neutral; of course, a man can also be fucked doggie-style).

Let me emphasize that this is a one-way journey. Once the capsaicin has been applied, it is futile to try to wash it off. If the effects are too strong to endure, have her lay on her stomach and cool her bottom with a bag of ice. Aloe or other soothing lotion may help, but keep in mind that every time you touch those burning buns to apply it, it is going to hurt. Better to stay with her in the scene and enjoy the ride.

Hi-Tech Sex

© Hermes Solenzol, 2016

“¡Honey, I’m ho-ome!”

Michel let out the customary American husband greeting complete with its appropriate singsong tone when he stepped into his Beverly Hills mansion. Ashley loved his little game of pretending to be the husband in a TV program that she watched as a child. He announced his arrival and she ran to greet him with a welcome kiss at the door.

But not today, apparently. The only one to appear was Kurby, who proceeded to dance crazily around him and to put his front paws on his suit.

Where the heck was Ashley? Michel climbed the stairs to the bedroom followed closely by Kurby, who kept jumping all around him despite his efforts to ignore him. A wave of heat struck him when he opened the bedroom door. The fireplace was on and there were candles everywhere: on the chest of drawers, on the bedside tables, over the closet and, dangerously, on top of the 48-inch flat screen TV. Michel threw his jacket on the bed and looked for the remote to turn off the fireplace. He blew out the candles over the TV and put them on the chest of drawers.

“What are you doing, honey?”

Ashley came out of the bathroom wearing a pink night gown and her favorite slippers: fluffy bunnies complete with glass eyes and long ears. She was petite, with dangerous curves, short blond hair and sparkling blue eyes.

“Hey! Don’t turn off the candles!” she protested.

“Only these ones, chérie… They are going to get wax inside the TV, don’t you see?”

“And the fire! Why have you turned off the fireplace?”

“It’s too hot.”

“But it’s November! Next week is Thanksgiving and Christmas is just around the corner. What’s wrong with turning on the fireplace in the Fall?”

“Yeah, it’s Fall all right, but the Santa Anas are blowing. Have you been outside? It’s steaming hot!”

“I was just trying to create a nice ambiance for you… And then you come and spoil everything!” she whined.

Michel put his arm around her waist and brought her close to him.

“Oh, chérie, I really appreciate it! Does this mean that you have forgiven and we are going to make love again?”

“Yes, but…”

Michel didn’t let her finish. He pushed her to the bed until she fell on her back on it. He lifted up the pink night gown to uncover her perfect thighs and her pretty purple lace panties.

“Stop, Michel… Stop! … We need to talk first.”

Michel stopped and looked into her eyes.

“Yes, chérie?

Ashley sat up and patted the bed to make him sit beside her. Kurby, who had been running nervously around the room, took advantage of the opportunity to hump her leg. Michel tried to get him off her, but Kurby scared him off by fainting a bite and continued his task.

“Oh, that darned dog!”

“Don’t say that, Michel. He’s very affectionate, that’s all.”

“But, chérie, you can’t let him do that. It’s obscene! Didn’t we agree that you were going to take him to have him fixed?”

“Yeah, but this morning Tiffany gave me a better idea, so I took him to see Amanda.”

Without stopping his humping, Kurby insinuated his snout under Ashley’s night gown. That was too much, even for her. She peeled him off her leg, took him to the bedroom door and threw him out.

“And who the heck is Amanda?”

“She is a psychic animal psychologist who is able to make direct contact with the mind of pets. Many movie stars go to see her.”

“¡Oh, la-la, la-la, la-la! And did Amanda get in contact with the mind of Kurby?”

“Yes… Well, not exactly… She got his horoscope and read his cards. She saw that, indeed, Kurby has a strong sexual compulsion. The cards showed that it’s a serious problem that can cause him an untimely death. So we can’t have him fixed. That would kill him.”

“But then what are we going to do? You aren’t planning to…?”

“Of course not, Michel! We’ll have to get him some bitches to keep him satisfied.”

“Breed him, you mean? But who is going to want pups from Kurby? He isn’t even pure breed.”

“Of course he is! Kurby is a cockapoo, a design dog, one hundred per cent poodle and one hundred per cent Cocker Spaniel. My mother paid a small fortune for him.

“Ashley, a dog can’t be a hundred per cent one thing and a hundred per cent another…”

Ashley gave him that skeptical look that he knew so well. It was impossible to argue math with her.

“OK, let’s leave Kurby alone for the time being. What about us?”

“Of, yes, us… I also talked to Amanda about that.”

“With Amanda? But wasn’t she an animal psychologist?”

“She’s a people psychologist as well… Quite good, in fact. Since she is clairvoyant, she understands immediately what’s going on. I talked with her for almost two hours.”

“You didn’t tell her…”

“About Brittany? Of course I told her about Brittany! That’s the key issue, isn’t it?”

“But chérie, I’ve asked you to forgive me a thousand times. I haven’t seen Brittany for months!”

“Of course you don’t see her! She dumped you, didn’t she? Do you think I don’t know? Tiffany is a good friend of one of her best friends. She dumped you because you didn’t do the cunnilingus right. She seduced you because she thought that, being French, you’d be good at it. The slut!”

“Well, what did Amanda say? Did she tell you to make love with me? Because I imagine there has to be a reason for this”, he gestured to the candles burning all over the place.

“Yeah, that… You aren’t letting me explain, Michel… She said that I was right in trusting my intuition and not allow you to penetrate me, because the key of the problem is that we have a relationship that is too coitocentric… That’s the word she used: “coitocentric”. It means that penetration is a way for you to express your aggression and your will to dominate me. But that desire that you men feel to dominate is impossible to satisfy. You become addicted to it. You want more and more, so you need other women to…”

“But that’s not true, chérie! Making love is not expressing my desire to dominate, or my aggression, but the love I feel for you… Brittany was just a mistake. I let temptation get the best of me. It happens to a lot of people, but it won’t happen again, I swear. I love only you! You are the love of my life!”

“Then, if that’s true, you’ll have to respect my feelings about it… You’ll have to help me heal this wound.”

“And what do I have to do?”

Ashley gave him one of her most charming smiles, her eyes shining with excitement.

“Amanda had the most wonderful idea! You’ll see, let me show you…”

Ashley went to the chest of drawers and came back with two white cardboard boxes. She sat back on the bed with one of them on her knee. On the box was a picture of what looked like a sophisticated vibrator .

“A vibrator?”

“Yes. From now on we are going to practice hi-tech sex, healthy and clean. No more penetrations… Which, you have to agree, are quite disgusting, with all that yucky mucus and secretions.”

“¡Mais tu es devenue complètement folle!”

“Don’t talk to me in French, Michel. You know that I don’t understand it. Speak in English, we are in America.”

“Mais, chérie, you always said that my accent is what you like the most about me… and that is very romantic when I talk to you in French.”

“Yeah, but not now, Michel. We are talking about something serious and I need to understand what you say.”

“Well, I just said that you have gone completely nuts. How are we going to make love with a vibrator? That’s completely artificial, fake, inhuman… How can you compare that with the intimacy of body to body contact, feeling our muscles tense and relax, being inside each other… All those mucus and secretions you mentioned are not disgusting, they are natural…”

“Oh, yeah? Who would have known, seeing how you react when you do that cunnilingus thing!”

“That was just that one time, chérie… I’ve explained it to you a thousand times. It was just that dinner didn’t seat to well with me.”

“Is that what you tell Brittany?”

Michel sighed.

“Why can’t we have a decent conversation without you bringing up Brittany?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, but you are not listening. You said I was crazy without even letting me explain what this things does.”

“All right! What does it do?”

“It’s not just a vibrator, Michel, it’s much more sophisticated than that. It’s called the iCum and it’s able to unleash the most powerful orgasms.

“Really? How?”

“Oh, Michel, don’t ask me to explain how it works, you know how bad I am about technology! Amanda explained it to me with all sort of detail, but I can’t remember a thing. Look, here it explains everything…”

Ashley opened the box and brought out a thick instruction book. Michel browsed through it. It was so thick because it contained information in over a dozen different languages. The instructions in English were just four pages:

You are holding in your hand a technological marvel that will bring about a new Sexual Revolution! The iCum-F is the key to expand your sexual capacity beyond your wildest dreams! Don’t let appearances fool you, the iCum-F is not a simple vibrator! It is an instrument combining sophisticated sensors to measure your level of clitoral arousal with a whole gamut of stimulators able to recruit all and each one of the nerve fibers of the feminine sexual organ. Of course, the iCum-F is able to reproduce any type of vibration known to date. But there is much, much more! Or team of scientists discovered that mechanical vibration is not the most effective way to stimulate the clitoris. The real key to pleasure is electrical stimulation, which the iCum can modulate in both frequency and intensity to bring you to ecstasy. At the same time that it stimulates your nerve fibers, the iCum-F measures the impedance of the clitoral mucosa to assess your degree of arousal. In that function it is assisted by a laser pulse-oximeter able to measure at the same time your heart beat, blood oxygen, blood flow and arterial pressure. All this gets integrated in the brain of the iCum-F, a tiny computer that…

“Are you planning to spend the entire evening reading that?”

“No, no, of course!” said Michel closing the booklet. “You are right: it’s much more advanced than a simple vibrator.”

“See? You don’t trust me. Sometimes I feel like you think I’m dumb.”

“Please don’t say that, chérie! How could I think that of you! What’s in the other box?”

Ashely gave him a mischievous smile.

“The other box is for you, Michel. You wouldn’t think that I only cared about my own pleasure, would you?”

Ashely opened the other box and brought out a cylinder larger than the iCum-F.

“This is the iCum-M, for men. See? You put your ding-a-ling through this opening over here. At the end there is a device that stimulates the gland pretty much the same way that the iCum-F stimulates the clit. But there are a bunch of other things… Amanda explained them to me, but right now I can remember all the details.”

“Well, let’s take a look…”

Michel found the instruction booklet and started to read it.

“Hey, don’t start reading again!” said Ashley grabbing the manual from him. “Where do you think we are, in a library?”

“But we have to find out how this works,” protested Michel turning the iCum-M in his hands. “Can we open it? Because if I cum inside it would need to be cleaned, right?”

“Oh yes, that I can explain… See? That’s why we have these…”

Ashley took a plastic bag out of the iCum-M box. She open it and extracted a rubber disk from it.

“These are disposable inserts for your iCum-M, made of natural rubber. When you use it, you throw it away and the next time you put in a new one.”

“I see… disposable vaginas,” he said laughing at his own joke.

“Don’t be silly! As you can see, it’s quite an hygienic system. No more changing the sheets after making love.”

“And how much did you pay for these toys?”

“Nine hundred and ninety nine dollars… Plus taxes, of course.”

“Jesus! Both?”

“No, each one… Come on, Michel, you’re the one who always says that money doesn’t matter! What can be more important than our sex life?”

“But this is not about our sex life. These thingies are just to masturbate, which is different.”

“No, they are not for masturbating, they are for making love. Because you wouldn’t use your iCum when you are not with me, would you?”

The way Ashley was frowning, there was only one possible answer.

‘Of course not… But, chérie, even if we use the iCums at the same time, that wouldn’t be the same thing as making love…”

Ashley threw him on the bed and got on top of him, playfully.

“I know what you want, you dummy! You will be able to touch me everywhere: my ass, my tits, whatever you want… But instead of putting your cock inside me, you put it inside the iCum. It will treat it right, you’ll see.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic…”

Ashley kissed him in the lips furiously.

“Come on! Don’t be so negative! Let’s try…”

After a frustrating delay because of some difficulties with putting the vagina insert in the iCum-M, they finally got it going. Michel started manhandling Ashley but, when she saw that he wasn’t going to take the lead, she pulled down her panties and rushed to apply her iCum-F to her clit. Michel just laid there, looking at her expression of ecstasy without knowing what to do. Finally, he grabbed his iCum-M, lubricated it and gingerly put his penis inside.

The device clamped around his cock like a vise, starting undulating motions up and down the shaft. It wasn’t unpleasant, just a bit threatening to feel trapped that way. But then the really good stuff got started. An exquisite electric discharge zapped his frenulum, followed by soft vibrations and delicious discharges of static. He thought that he would cum right away and again tried to take his penis out of the iCum, but the darned thing wasn’t going to let him go. Nevertheless, the intense stimulation stopped and was replaced by a soft massage up and down his shaft. Then it started all over again.

“¡Ah, chérie, c’est vraiment magnifique!”

But Ashely, lying at his side, wasn’t listening. She shook spasmodically in what looked like the most intense orgasm of her life.

***

“Honey, I’m ho-ome!”

Ashley heard the singsong greeting with which Michel announced his arrival. Long ago she had grown bored with playing that stupid game of pretending to be a 50s housewife but she didn’t want to spoil it for Michel, who obviously enjoyed it so much. Luckily, there was always Kurby to welcome him home when she was busy… Like she was right now. She listened, expecting to hear the sound of paws running over the wooden floor, but there was nothing… Where was that stupid dog? I’d had to be her who greeted Michel.

She left the two iCums on the bed with the bags of “vaginas”, as she and Michel had started to call them in jest. She looked at herself in the mirror to check her makeup, adjusted the strap on her nightgown over her shoulder and left the bedroom.

She had been waiting for him anxiously. They had gone three days without having sex and it was starting to get to her nerves. Michel’s parents had come from Paris to spend Christmas with them and she had to take her mother-in-law, who didn’t speak a word of English, shopping in Rodeo Drive. She didn’t speak any French, either, so she had no idea on how they were going to communicate, but Michel had insisted in leaving the two of them alone because shopping was a woman thing. After some tension resulting from her failure to convey to Madame Nicole how expensive those stores in Beverly Hills could be, her own mother had offered to take her.

On top of that, today, December 26, when everybody in their right mind took the day off, Michel had decided that he absolutely had to go to work.

The temptation of using the iCum by herself had been almost irresistible, but she had promised Michel that she’d only use it with him. To do otherwise would be like cheating on him. Or so she had told herself, and that way she had been able to keep the darned thing in its box all day long.

“Oh, darling, I missed you so much!” She screamed in his ear as she jumped on him to hug him with arms and legs. “Let’s go into the bedroom, I can’t stand it one more second!”

“Ah, chérie, neither can I! But, please, get me a bottle of Perrier from the fridge while I change. I’m so thirsty! We have the Santa Anas again.

Ashley was going upstairs with the bottle of Perrier when she heard Michel let out a bloodcurdling scream from the bedroom.

“Arrrg! My vaginas! Kurby has eaten my vaginas!”

When she opened the bedroom door she witnessed a devastating debacle: the bag of inserts for the iCum-M was laying on the bed, bitten into pieces. The “vaginas” were spread all over the bedroom floor. While she looked, Kurby grabbed one between his teeth. Holding the other end between his paws, he pulled until the insert tore with a loud “plop” .

“Kurby, bad dog! Very bad dog! Look what you have done!”

Kurby just wagged his tailed and looked back at her, excited with his new game. When she ran to him to grab him, Kurby grabbed the last intact insert between his teeth and, dodging her, ran out the door.

“OK, this is it!” shouted Michel, enraged. “I want that dog out of my house! I want him gone by tomorrow!”

“Calm down, Michel. You know very well that we can’t kick Kurby out. My mother is in love with him ever since she bought him for us. If we kick him out, the next day they’ll kick you out of your job.”

“Oh, God! Why did I ever let your parents hire me! What are we going to do now?”

Michel sat on the bed and buried his face in his hands. Ashley sat beside him and started massaging his shoulders.

“Come on! Come on! Don’t worry, there’s got to be an insert that you can use.

They spent the next half an hour going through the vaginas, inspecting them one by one. Kurby had been quite thorough, there wasn’t a single one left intact.

“OK, don’t worry, on Monday I’ll go see Amanda and I’ll get you a new bag of inserts.”

“On Monday? But today is Friday!”

“It’s all I can do. Amanda goes away on weekends to her house in Palm Springs.”

Michel looked dubiously at his iCum-M.

“You know, maybe it can be used without an insert. It shouldn’t be too hard to clean it afterward.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Michel…”

But Michel was already taking off his pants. The moment he was naked, he jumped on her and started touching her everywhere. She became instantly aroused, not because of his clumsy caresses and squeezes, but because the moment to use her beloved iCum-F was so close at hand. Pretty soon she could wait no more. She peeled off her panties and grabbed the iCum-F from the bedside table.

The first delicious pulsations starting teasing her clit. Through half-closed eyelids she saw Michel cautiously introducing his fully erected cock in his iCum-M. Exquisite electric discharges made her close her eyes. A dreadful scream from Michel made her open them again.

“Arrrg! Ouch! Ayayayay! How do you stop this thing? Ashley, please, turn it off!”

Michel was fighting like a madman to get his penis out of the device, which seemed equally determined not to let it go.

“You can’t turn it off, it’s automatic,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Then get the batteries out… Do something, for God sake!”

‘It has no batteries. It gets charged through the USB, you know that… I was going to tell you that without the insert the electric discharges could get a tad too intense.”

“No shit! And now you tell me? Ouch!”

Luckily, his torment didn’t last too long. His poor tortured cock didn’t take long to lose its erection as a result of the harsh treatment it was receiving, and so it could break free of the vise that was trapping it.

They looked at each other, not knowing what to say.

“Michel, please, I can’t wait anymore…” she pleaded.

 His anxious look made her fear the worse. She started praying for him not to say it.

“I know, chérie, I know… Go ahead and do it. I’ll just sit here and watch you cum. That’s pleasure enough for me.”

She let out a sigh of relief and hugged him.

“That’s what I expected of you, my love. You’ve always behaved like a perfect French gentleman. I love you so much!”

“¡Mais bien sûr, chérie!”

Ashely closed her eyes again and surrendered to the exquisite sensations that the iCum-F was giving her. She was so turned on! She was vaguely aware of the presence of Michel next to her, caressing her breasts, her belly, the inside of her thighs, but all of that was nothing compared to the strict discipline of pleasure that the iCum was delivering to her pussy, taking her to ever higher peaks… to let her fall from there at the last second. Vibrations and discharges ebbed to almost nothing just when she was about to reach her climax.

The third time it happened she realized that something had gone terribly wrong.

“What’s going on, Michel?” she moaned. “It stops just when I’m about to reach orgasm!”

“I don’t know… Well, it could be that… don’t you remember? The last time we used the iCums we decided to change the mode. We set them on “edging”.

“And what on Earth is “edging”?

“It’s keeping you close to orgasm without letting you get all the way there.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“No, chérie. You asked for it because you said that we were finishing too soon.”

“You were finishing too soon, you dummy, not me! Why the fuck did you have to touch my iCum!”

“Don’t worry, chérie, it would just take a minute to reprogram it,” he said meekly.

“I’ll do it! I don’t trust you anymore!”

She got out of bed, got the USB cable from the bedside table drawer and used it to plug her iCum to her laptop.

“This stupid thing takes longer and longer to boot! You need to buy me a new laptop, I’ve told you a thousand times!”

Michel tried to massage her shoulders. She shook him off with an angry motion.

A message showed up in her screen:

New hardware 

Looking for drivers…

The window closed. A new one came up, larger and with black background.

“Nooo!” she screamed in frustration.

Michel squatted at her side to be able to read the screen. They both stared at the new message in disbelief:

System update

Please wait

Downloading…

At the bottom of the screen there was a black bar with a tiny green notch at the left. Over it, it said “1%”. After a while, the green bar grew a bit and the number changed to “2%”.

Unable to move, they kept staring at the screen as the green bar continued to move at glacial speed towards 100%.

Cecilia, a portrait

What makes a woman beautiful? There are women of astounding beauty. Women who are tall, sculptural, with blond hair, blue eyes and generous breasts. They are the women that we expect to see on a magazine cover, on a movie poster. Just past her twentieth birthday, Cecilia is pretty, but with a discrete beauty that is only revealed under close inspection. She is petite, with features reduced in proportion. She has black hair parted in the middle; a sea of unruly curls messed up by her habit of sticking her fingers into them, combing them back in a coquettish motion that often ends with a wild shake of her head. Her face is triangular and symmetric, with high cheekbones, straight thing nose and sharp chin. Her lips are expressive, able to change in a heartbeat from a charming smile to a grimace of annoyance, and her big dark brown eyes are shaded by long eyelashes that emphasize that thoughtful look so common in her. One can make out the shape of the muscles in her strong, well-proportioned body, particularly in her arms and her thighs. Her breasts are small, with that shape rounded from the front, conical in profile, that establish youth and elegance. Her most attractive feature is her bottom, which has a bold, insolent curvature that make men turn around in the street to look at her as she walks away.

What makes a woman interesting? There are women with high-pitched, childish, excited voices. Other have voices that are as profound and seductive as the night. Cecilia speaks with a youthful, serene voice, sometimes fast, sometimes meditative. Her gaze often gets lost in the distance or glances self-absorbed at some random object that happens to be in front of her. Her eyes smile better than her lips, but they also know how to glare in anger or
to let tears flow with abandon. She moves with quick, nervous gestures, or occasionally rests motionless, lost in deep thoughts. Because Cecilia is above all a girl of exceptional intelligence, of unconventional ideas, who chases her goals with a stubbornness bordering obsession.

What is it that some women have to make everybody fall in love with them? Perhaps, more than their beauty or their personality, what makes them irresistible is the power of their passion. Cecilia carries inside a burning desire that, like it happens with volcanoes, can be asleep sometimes, but sooner or later it explodes in a rain of incandescent sparks and blazing lava flows. Somehow that inner fire peeks out in the glint of her eyes, in the warmth of her skin, causing many to be bewitched. But beware those who dare love her! For Cecilia is also a woman of dark fantasies, one who courts pain and infamy, and it isn’t always easy to accompany her to the murky places that she likes to visit.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of our story we encounter a different Cecilia. An innocent, immature and sanctimonious girl, trapped in the historical circumstances of the country where she was born: a Spain that was just beginning to wake up from forty years of gloomy dictatorship. That tyranny and the devastating war that preceded it could smother perhaps the yearning for liberty and justice of an entire generation. But what the fascists never expected was that the desire to be free and to fight for a better world will be reborn with renewed strength in the hearts of their own children.

Is it sinful to be spanked?

This is a scene from the first chapter of my novel “Games of love and pain”, which I published in Spanish and have started translating into English. The story starts in January 1976 in the southern French city of Perpignan. Cecilia and Julio had to share a hotel room in their way back to Spain during a skiing trip to the Alps. Cecilia is quite religious and prudish, but in the course of an intimate conversation with Julio they both discover that they share some peculiar sexual tastes…

The idea that started to form in her head was terrifying… in a sort of tempting, irresistible way.

“But it I like it, it doesn’t have to be so horrible.”

Her heart was beating fast. She kept gazing at the ceiling, not daring to look at Julio.

“Hey… What do you mean with all this?” said Julio, pulling at her arm to make her look at him. “Do you mean that you want me to spank you? That’s really amazing coming from you, Cecilia!”

She felt herself blush. She rolled sideways, turning her back to him so he wouldn’t see her face.

“That was stupid of me… I shouldn’t have told you anything.”

Julio grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her slightly.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to be ashamed of telling me what your brother did to you. I’m so happy that you trusted me enough to tell me! I just don’t understand what you want… Before you came here with me you made me promise that I wasn’t going to touch you… And now you want me to spank you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to do it?”

“Of course I would like to do it! But I didn’t think that was a possibility. I never imagine that I would find a woman who would agree to that.”

“Well, you have found me.”

“Are you sure, Cecilia? Don’t you think it would be a sin?”

“If it hurts, if I don’t feel pleasure, how could it be a sin?”

“Look here, Cecilia, I know what you are doing. You are just going around inside your pretty head looking for excuses. I’m dying to do it, I assure you. But I promised you that tonight I wouldn’t try anything with you, so I’m not going to mislead you. Whatever you decide, you’ll have to decide by yourself, don’t tell me afterwards that I tricked you.”

It was true. Her own arguments failed to convince her. Guilt and desire fought each other inside her.

“The thing is… if we don’t do it now, it will never happen” she whined. “When we go back to Madrid I will never see you again.”

“Why not? Why shouldn’t we continue being friends? Maybe you should think about all this more calmly.”

But she knew that if she let the opportunity slip away it would never come back, for either of them. She would probably never find that husband that knew how to discipline her in a loving way. And Julio would never find another masochistic woman that would let him spank her. That made up her mind. She wanted to give him that present. She wanted to leave him with a memory as unforgettable as that evening with Laura under the poster of the Sagrada Familia.

“Just a few spanks, on my pajamas, OK?”

Julio looked at her with a mixture of excitement and fear.

“OK. If you want me to stop, you only have to tell me, got it?”

“I got it.”

She couldn’t believe what was about to happen.

Julio sat up in the middle of the bed with his back straight, leaning on a pillow and the headboard. He left his legs under the covers, pulling them up to cover his lap.

“Lay down on top of my legs” he told her.

Cecilia kneeled on the bed to his right. She hesitated, and for a moment their eyes met. Julio’s face showed desire and a certain anxiety. She wasn’t  going to chicken out now. She let herself fall across his lap. Julio’s crossed legs made her butt stick out in a rather obscene way. She felt the warmth of his body. His smell intoxicated her. Waves of excitement cruised her entire body.

Julio slapped her bottom. The thick fabric of the pajamas took all the force of the hit, so that she felt only a blunt impact, not at all painful.

“How was that?” asked Julio.

“It didn’t hurt at all. Hit me harder.”

“Let’s see…”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Julio raise his hand, which landed with force on her. But, once more, the spank had no effect at all. Julio hit her a few more times with the same result. It was utterly frustrating.

It came as a sudden, unconscious decision. She put her hands inside the waist of her pajama pants and pulled down to lower them. By the contact of the cool air with her skin she knew that her panties had bundled up, leaving most of her buttocks bare.

She heard Julio draw a deep breath.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, fearful that he would want to stop.

“Nothing… Is just… that you have such a beautiful butt… May I touch it?”

Without waiting for her answer, Julio caressed her buttocks were they were left exposed by the panties. It gave her goosebumps. The touch of Julio’s hand was soft, incredibly sensual. Too sensual.

“No, no!” she protested. “Just spank me.”

Julio’s hand went away, only to immediately fall back on her with full force. This time it cracked on her skin with a sting. Right away, Julio spanked her other cheek, where it also elicited a lively burn. At the third stroke she couldn’t avoid moving her butt to try to avoid it.

“So, not it does hurt, doesn’t it?”

“You bet!” her voice came out faltering. “Go on.”

“So you think this is rather funny, don’t you?” said Julio in a commanding and slightly mocking voice. “Look, Cecilia, you had this coming a long way. Most of the time you are a pretty good girl, but from time to time your wires get crossed and you throw some silly temper tantrums… Like the one you had today in the bus, don’t you think?”

That lecture had to be fake, to spice things up, but Julio’s voice sounded so stern that it did scare her a little. It also turned her on.

“Yes, I deserve a good punishment. Spank me hard!”

“Well, then prepare yourself. I’m going to give you something you won’t easily forget!”

To emphasize what he said, Julio grabbed her hip with one hand while with the other he gave her a series of quick slaps, alternating between her buttocks. The blows were sufficiently severe to keep her from thinking about anything else. Still, the spark of pain elicited by each slap had an undeniable pleasure quality. It merged with the perverse joy that came from the humiliating position in which Julio held her and the idea that she was being punished like a little girl. Very soon she started wiggling her bottom from side to side, up and down, as her body hopelessly tried to escape the slaps. It became an obscene dance that she performed following the rhythm that Julio marked with his spanks, like the monotone rhythm of a metronome, warning her of precisely when the next slap was going to hit her so that the stings of pain acquired the inevitability of destiny. None of them said anything; each one was completely absorbed in their task: to punish and to be punished. Cecilia only produced sighs and occasional moans… whether from pain or from pleasure, she didn’t know. The spanks did produce a loud noise that exploded on the skin of her bottom and reverberated on the walls of the room, small explosions as alarming as the blows themselves. Julio’s arm held her hip against a vertical, cylindrical bump in his belly of which she was only vaguely conscious, absorbed as she was in the conflicting emotions evoked by the spanking.

Julio stopped suddenly. He pushed her away from his lap and jumped off the bed. He ran into the bathroom, a fist tightly closed on the front of his pajama pants.

Cecilia was left laying on her belly, not even caring to pull up her pants. Her heart was beating loudly in her ears. She was shaking. The contrast between the intensity of her connection with Julio and her suddenly loneliness filled her with confusion. She felt abandoned, rejected in the middle of that intimate act to which she had abandoned herself so completely. Without knowing exactly why, she started to cry.

Coming out of the bathroom, Julio looked at her with surprise.

“You are crying! What’s wrong?”

He sauntered to the bed. He laid at her side and hugged her from behind.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you so much” he muttered.

“It’s not that…” she said with a slobbery voice from crying. “Why did you leave so suddenly?”

“Oh, that! Well… you see, it was that I… I couldn’t hold it anymore… I went into the bathroom so you wouldn’t see me.”

 Cecilia sat up, turning to look at him.

“Do you mean that you have… ejaculated?”

“Only a little bit…”

Cecilia laughed, tears still pouring out of her eyes.

“That means that you got really excited.”

“I think it was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“More exciting than making love to Laura?”

“Yes, even more than that.”

That made her feel proud. But immediately a crushing wave of guilt invaded her.

“Ay, Julio! What have we done!”