The second question is this. Did the inclusion of a straight love story enhance or spoil the book for you? I had never had fantasies about vanilla romance in my life. So to have Sandra turn into the important person in John’s life that she did was a surprise to me. She started out as a means to get him cleaned up between stations. But I was extremely satisfied with what happened in the Love and Life chapters. Did you notice the use of “perfect” in both the opening and ending paragraphs of the story? I didn’t notice it myself until it was done.
Thank you! And please write a review, pro or con, or contact me at MHKeplar@gmail.com.
P. S. It is now five months later and it turns out that Twelve Maxbridge Street is not a one-off. The hormonal surge that triggered it had largely faded when I undertook to come up with a new fantasy. I imagined a man, standing naked, on display. There it was, and slowly the story in Naked unfolded, to be followed by The Recurrence, published in one book, Naked and The Recurrence.
Once again, I’m almost certain that there will be no more books. But I’ve added “almost” to my prediction.
APPENDIX
I’ve received feedback from more than one person to the effect that “men don’t experience erotic large muscle spasms the way women do.” I did a little online research and here is my response:
1 – Men do experience such contractions when the prostate is directly stimulated. There are a number of videos on the internet that illustrate this phenomenon.
2 – Women can experience them in the absence of physical stimulation. I am evidence of that.
3 – Men can experience a genital orgasm in the absence of physical stimulation. (Wet dreams and much other testimony.)
4 – It stands to reason that men can experience erotic large muscle contractions in the absence of physical stimulation.
Where Maxbridge Lies in the Broader World of Erotica
Twelve Maxbridge Street is a record of a fantasy I had at a time when I hadn’t read erotica for many decades. When I published it and was introduced to the wide world of eBooks I was struck by how different it was from what else was out there, but I couldn’t articulate what constituted that difference. So I solicited feedback in Facebook, Reddit and various dedicated web sites. Many of the critiques could be boiled down to these: “The description is probably as fine as can be gotten through written word. Now I want to read the psychological parts.” Another said, “When we think about pain and humiliation in BDSM, it is never mechanical. Each thing is associated with an emotion.”
I tried to think of ways to add “emotion,” but was stumped for many months, but I finally figured it out.
The kind of masochism that I’m describing is the kind which causes a person to experience only one emotion, surrender. The self is subsumed under that emotion, and the experience is only of it and pain and sexual arousal and release. There is no room for self reflection. No thoughts are present. No guilt, no resistance, no happiness, no smirking. So the reader brings their own experience to the narration.
What about humiliation? Isn’t that an emotion? I think that what happens is the character is put in humiliating situations and goes immediately to surrender.
Very early on after publication, I received two helpful observations. One kind reviewer said they were “in the vein of classic French erotica” and compared it to The Story of O, bt Pauline Reage. Another, not so kind, said it was “old style.”
I don’t know why it took me so long, but I re-read The Story of O ten months after publishing Maxbridge. Indeed, there is almost no description of O’s feelings beyond her desire to do anything her lover Rene wants her to do. Indeed, we don’t even know what O feels sexually. Is she sexually aroused? Apparently she never has an orgasm, and yet this book is acknowledged as an important classic in erotica. The reader must bring their reactions to the narration of events.
The absence of descriptions of O’s sexual feelings is very certainly not a quality shared with Maxbridge, which is very explicit about the main character’s physical responses.
O is probably my favorite book of erotica, but I hadn’t read it for almost fifty years, so I was intrigued to discover that Maxbridge must have been inspired by it in small ways as well as large. The cape, the discussion about whips, measuring his forearm, and the valet saying “Please be good enough to turn around,” while whipping her, must have lived in my subconscious for many decades.
Now that all my questions about where Twelve Maxbridge Street belongs in the world of erotica have been answered, I’m publishing my discoveries here just because I want to share.
Thanks for your attention,
M H Keplar