Monday, 30 January 2012

• As many words for kiss as Eskimos have for snow

  I don't particularly enjoy writing sex scenes, but my characters seem to have a healthy interest in sex.  I'm reminded of actors who say that doing a sex scene isn't sexy because everything is about making sure that a leg is positioned just so, that an arm is bent at just the right angle, that the lighting is casting just the right shadow, that the bedding is exposing just the right amount of leg and that it all happens on a sound stage in front of the crew.  I feel the same way about writing sex scenes.  There's an awful lot of attention to the mechanics of the scene in order to reveal the passion that's mostly going on inside the character's head.
  
  But if blogging has taught me anything, it's taught me that some of my readers are obsessed with sex (you know who you are; I won't embarrass you by tagging you).  So here's an excerpt for you from Who is Killing Doah's Deer? 
  
  

  Before leaving the house, Mayor Big Jim Donovan ran his wife a bath.  While the tub filled, Rocki subjected herself to examination in the harsh light, the two mirrors positioned to permit her to check herself from every unflattering angle.  Rocki had warm green eyes and red hair falling like eternal summer waves on her beachfront shoulders.  Now that she was in her forties, Rocki knew, if she was not ever-vigilant, things would start to slip.  Big Jim didn't seem to notice, but Rocki couldn't ignore the signs of slippage.

  She stepped carefully into the tub, the water almost too hot to tolerate, the scent of narcissus enveloping her as she lowered herself into the bubbles.  Rocki reveled in the bubbles, and in the good fortune that was her life.  She had a son on the Dean's List at Cornell, a son who had never caused her to worry the way so many of her friends had to, a husband who had turned unemployment into opportunity, who was gentle and considerate and in love with his wife, and she had a lover who would be knocking on the door in just a few minutes.  Life was good.

  Rocki's best friend Eleanor served on the Planning Board with Big Jim.  Eleanor was the best kind of best friend, having been best friends since elementary school.  Her husband, Bill, was a middle school science teacher and eco-terrorist.  He was, also, Rocki's inamorata.  Rocki couldn't decide which bothered her more - that she was cheating on Big Jim or Eleanor.  The only thing she knew for sure was she would never do anything to hurt either.

  Relaxing in the tub, Rocki thought about her first time with Bill....

  ...When Big Jim and Eleanor left for the Planning Board, Bill and Rocki sat around, friends eating chocolate, sipping Merlot and listening to Motown.  Reaching for another piece of pie, Bill bumped the bottle, spilling red wine on the carpet.

  "Jeeesus, Bill" and Rocki jumped up from the sofa to clean the rapidly spreading red stain.

  Bill, to his credit, jumped up to help, but really, men know nothing about cleaning and have extraordinarily loose standards when it comes to the definition of clean, so Rocki pushed him out of the way, and, ignoring him until she was satisfied with the results, proceeded to repair the damage.  Carpet cleaned, Rocki realized that Bill was still standing there, afraid to sit down, afraid to help, awkward and needy in that annoyingly male sort of way.  She couldn't help but be touched by his utter uselessness and, without thinking, leaned over and gave him a kiss.  It meant nothing, a sexless, perfunctory kiss, intended only to let Bill know she wasn't angry.  Rocki remembered thinking at the time that the English language needed more words for kiss, different words to describe different kisses, as many words for kiss as Eskimos have for snow.  She leaned over and gave him a "dusting of snow" kiss, but somehow, at that moment, it wasn't in the weather forecast, but the heavens opened, the sky teeming with heavy, wet snowflakes, a veritable blizzard of a kiss.

  On TV, the Mayor was arguing about a proposal to build thirty-five single family homes on an environmentally-sensitive tract on the north side of town, but at the Mayor's home, Rocki and Bill, up to their hips in new, wet snow, were not listening.  The snowstorm continued for hours, the old friends, turned lovers, cavorting naked in the snow, Bill making snow angels in the bedroom, Rocki catching snowflakes on her tongue.

  Later that night, Bill long gone, Big Jim sleeping at her side, gently snoring, Rocki remembered every touch, every tingle, every snow flake, his weight upon her and inside her, his smell, his taste, everything.  Rocki rolled over in bed, stared at her husband and smiled.  She loved Big Jim, but she was thrilled by the awesome and totally unexpected power of the middle-aged snowstorm with male pattern baldness that was Bill Wehnke. 

  
  

  
  

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