Snippet Sunday: MERCY

I’ve had Mercy on my mind since receiving this really enthusiastic and wonderful review at LipSmackin GoodBooks. There is something about very hardcore sex and very hardcore submission that just does it for me. A lot of readers don’t enjoy it (see Mercy’s Amazon and Goodreads reviews for examples) but I think extreme power exchange can pack a big emotional punch because there’s so much invested. I have many readers who LOVE Mercy above all my other books and I can understand the intensity of their feelings.

I started a new Cirque book (not titled yet) featuring Le Maitre, who you may remember from Cirque de Minuit. So far it’s turning in a deep/hardcore submission book, which is nice because so many readers have asked for a book similar in tone to Mercy. And I have wanted to write a book similar in tone to Mercy, but the characters have to be just right to make it work. We’ll see.

In the meantime I’ll share this little snippet when Matthew tries to convince a wary Lucy about power exchange and pain, and how pleasurable it can be.

     “If you’re so rich, why don’t you just buy a hooker?”

     “Because I don’t want a hooker. I want you.”

     “How do you know? You don’t even really know me.”

     “I know enough. I know that your body turns me on. I know you’d get off on submitting to me.”

     “That’s all you need in a girlfriend?”

     “A girlfriend?” He laughed. “Sorry, I don’t want another girlfriend. I just want a submissive to put through her paces. I’m giving you truth here, Lucy. I’m not saying that to hurt you.”

     So it showed then, the hurt and humiliation I felt at his words. My face burned with it. I felt like I’d just been kicked.

     “I want to use your body because I find it beautiful and perfect. I just want to play with you, but I think you’ll enjoy it all the same. And if you want,” he added as an afterthought, “I’ll pay you for your time.”

     I made a nauseated face.

     “Yes, I thought that’s how you’d feel. Anyway, the pleasure will be payment enough.”

     My God. My God. My God. My God.

     “Okay,” I said. “Here’s some truth for you. I’ve never fucked someone I’m not in a relationship with.”

     “Oh, we’d be in a relationship. Just a non-traditional one. Do you really want another boyfriend? So soon?”

     I thought for a minute. God, no. I didn’t.

     “And it wouldn’t just be fucking, Lucy. Exchanging power is erotically charged, yes, and it can be deeply sexual, but it’s about much more than just getting off. It will meet needs you didn’t even realize you had. It will meet needs for you and me both. And it would be safe, of course. Everything we did together would be absolutely safe and consensual.”

     “Consensual?”

     “Yes, it would have to be. You know what I mean by consensual? You would be there because you want to be. And we would use safe words.”

     “Safe words?” No explanation was forthcoming. “What are safe words?” I was a little afraid to find out.

     “Safe words are words that keep people like you safe.”

     “Safe from what?”

     “Safe from people like me.”

     He leaned back then, stretching casually, as if we discussed nothing more unusual than the weather. I sat across from him and wrestled with my feelings. Anger, indignation, shame, curiosity, lust. Then his eyes returned to mine and he spoke to me with intensity in his voice.

     “You know, I want to own you and I want to use you. I want your obedience and beauty. But what I really want is for you to find joy in it too.”

     “Joy?”

     “Yes, joy. And perhaps, at times, a little pain,” he said with a faint smile. “I’m not going to lie to you. There’s a good bit of the sadist in me. There will be times that I’ll purposely hurt you, times that I’ll try to make you cry. There will be ups and downs, and, well, a considerable amount of pain. But somehow I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Another thing I really loved about Mercy is how Matthew talked so much about joy and beauty, because I do believe these intense kinds of relationships provide a kind of transcendent joy and beauty, for all their occasional ugliness.

Thanks for joining me today and if you haven’t checked out my other ballet-themed book, Waking Kiss, be sure to put it on your summer reading list. It’s also very emotionally intense and beautiful in its own way.