The holiday season is upon us! With Thanksgiving just a few days away, I can almost feel the nervous anxiety - did I say anxiety? I meant excitement - you have trying to get the shopping done, the house cleaned, the cooking prepped and of course, preparing for the family to come. Some members you can't wait to see. Others, you've probably had to make an extra run to the liquor store just to make sure you'll get through the day.
Let's face it. We love our families, but sometimes these get-togethers can be trying. Your mom may criticize your cooking techniques because they differ from hers; your uncle may get drunk, and relay stories from your youth that you'd rather forget, or if your sister is anything like mine, she may ask you about the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy in front of your mother.
Oh yeah, she went there. Hang on... it gets worse.
To say my mother is a kind of a prude would be like saying the pope is kind of Catholic. She takes the word "prude" to a whole other level. If Mother Theresa was still alive and met my mother, I am certain she would spend five minutes with her and say, "Woman, you need to lighten up." To this day, I'm not convinced I wasn't left on the doorstep by a stork or the product of Immaculate Conception.
Growing up, we were taught sex was bad and dirty, and sure as hell wasn't something women should enjoy. My puritanical upbringing is part of why I include sex in my books, but that's another blog. So imagine my surprise when my older sister, also quite vanilla, brought up Fifty Shades of Grey.
Yep, I almost fell out of the damn chair.
Allow me to set the scene for you. I'm writing it in first person present to give you the full effect. We've just finished dessert. The men are parked in front of the television watching the game in a turkey coma (thank God!). My mom is sitting next to me still picking at her pumpkin pie, and my sister is across from me when she utters these fateful words, "Have you read the Fifty Shades of Grey books?"
My head snaps up and I glare at her having an intense nonverbal conversation. "Really? Mom's not invisible, right? You can see she is sitting right here." My sister appears completely oblivious to my silent chasting. I feel the weight of their eyes on me, waiting for my response. "No. I started it, but couldn't really get into it. Christian Grey was a bit too controlling and stalkerish for me."
"So you don't know anything about it?" my sister presses for some reason.
"I know some stuff. I mean, I've got the gist of what it's about."
"What's Fifty Shades?" my mom joins in beaming with curiosity. I stare at my coffee wishing I'd opted to add some Bailey's or Kahlua, or, given the situation, some 151.
"It's a book about sex," I say flatly, hoping it will be the end of it. My mom shifts in her chair as I rack my brain searching for another subject to bring up. Any subject. But I can't focus because my sister has that look on her face. The one that tells me she is going to say something without thinking.
"It's really popular," she says. "He has a special room he calls a "Red Room" and he wants her to sign a contract."
"A contract?" Mom asks. "For what? To work for him?"
"No... for sex stuff."
My mom squinches her face in disgust. "Sex stuff? Why would she have to sign a contract for that?"
And here we go...
"Because it's not standard stuff. It's..." My sister titters awkwardly beginning to realize the subject matter she's brought up. She looks to me for help, but I have nothing to offer since I haven't read the book yet and know nothing about this contract or what's on it. And, to be honest, I'm enjoying watching her dig herself deeper into this hole. "..it's... I can't even tell you because I didn't know what half of it was. I had to google it. Some of it I still don't understand. I have no idea what a frogger is."
"Flogger," I correct before I can think better of it.
"Fogger?" my mom repeats.
"FL-ogger." They both sit forward in their chairs waiting for me to elaborate since it's clear I know what it is. So I do the only thing I can. I explain what a flogger is and why someone would use one. They're both glaring at me like, well like I just told them what a flogger was.
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| Okay, technically this is a riding crop. |
And that's when my sister says, "Do you know what fisting is?"
"Fisting? What's fisting?" my mom asks. Yes, my mother just asked me about fisting. I eye the knife on my plate debating whether I should stab myself or my sister with it. Everything in me tells me I should use it on my sister, but then I'll be left to clean up the bloody mess and when that's through, I'll still have to explain fisting to my mother, and presumably a jury of my peers. Just when I think this conversation can't get any worse, my mom turns to me and says, "Do you know what it is? Tell me."
While I plot my sister's painful death, I debate my options: 1) Explain fisting to my mother and sister; 2) Wait in horror, knowing my sister will pull it up on her phone and then we'll have to sit around her tiny screening watching an example of fisting like some perverted family you'd see on Jerry Springer.
I push out a breath. "Fisting is when a guy takes his entire hand and shoves it..." I explain it as clinically as possible. Like I'm giving a lecture or reading from a textbook.
I push out a breath. "Fisting is when a guy takes his entire hand and shoves it..." I explain it as clinically as possible. Like I'm giving a lecture or reading from a textbook.
My sister howls with embarrassed laughter. My mom crinkles her nose, pursing her lips. "That's disgusting. Why would anyone ever do something like that? And you know about this?"
I shrug.
"I want to know how you know," my mom demands probably trying to figure out exactly how many Our Fathers and Hail Marys she's going to have to say to save my perverted soul.
"You know I grew up with and still have a lot of guy friends. They always treated me like one of the guys and didn't censor themselves."
"I can't believe you know about that kind of stuff." She shakes her head with disappointment. "And someone wrote about this in a book you read?"
"Not me. Her." I point to my sister eager to throw my mom's scrutiny elsewhere. My sister's eyes grow large enough to eclipse her entire face.
"I... I didn't know what it was about when I started it," she stammers. "Someone told me to read it. I didn't know anything about floggers or fisting... or butt plugs."
My mom's face pinches, twisting toward the apparent sexual deviant in the room. "What's a butt plug?"
KILL. ME. NOW.
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Don't forget to check out my steamy, angst-filled contemporary romance The Fame Series. These books make great Christmas gifts for the reader in your life.
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Book One: The Rise to Fame
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Happy Thanksgiving!🦃
