Fifty Shades of Shame

You know I hate coming back to this topic.

But, sometimes it's like Al Pacino in Godfather II - it just keeps pulling me back in.

Like on Sunday. There is something odd about going to the local grocery store and seeing a big display of a psuedo-smutty BDSM novel in aisle number 8, with half the books already gone, and one dog eared one there with the cover bent back, like a shopper had spent about an hour thumbing through looking for the good parts.

I was going to  let that drop though, despite the temptation to take a photo of this pathetic display with my I-phone.

But then it happened again, on Sunday evening. Dinner at the Mother-in-Law's house with our two daughters and one of their Co-Ed friends.

I'm not sure who brought it up: maybe the friend. She read it. Then our daughter just back from Europe says she read it. She comments that it's knocked off from the "Twilight" series, something we've commented about here. The girls both agree it's a little "weird".

Slave is keeping his mouth shut.

But could Mistress leave this alone. Oh No.

"You know, your father read it too!"

Jaws drop. Heads turn. Including the dumbstruck daughters and my very proper Mother-in-Law.

Dad wants to hide in a corner.

I was tempted to say, "Only so I could write a book review for our sex blog, honey!"

But I simply switched into my damage control mode, sort of on auto-pilot.

"Well it was getting all this publicity. As a student of pop culture I had to see what all the talk was about."

Daughter No. 2:

"I can't believe you read THAT......"

"Well I really just skimmed it."

More aghast looks. Them probably thinking I was just looking for the "good" parts.

"And boy was it lame...."

Of course, I'm not explaining why I thought it was lame. That there really aren't any 23 year old college grad virgins are there? Or that she just just have stopped agonizing and enjoy all those cums.

Again with "You really read THAT?"

I think you get the picture.

As it turns out, our older daughter had NOT read it. So when we got home, Mistress simply handed her the book that had been gathering dust on our shelf since my review.

Let's hope she doesn't give me those incredulous "Dad, that's disgusting" looks once she finishes it.

All I can say is this: Switch Day can't come soon enough this week, because Mistress is going to get a nice spanking when it does.

Mistress Gets Some Unsolicited Sex Advice

I'm sad to report that  Slave blinked on switch day yesterday. So if you were counting on smutty shots of Mistress tied to some furniture and "suffering" through some forced orgasms, you'll be disappointed today.  Truth be told, Mistress has been recuperating from some bad lung congestion.  So Slave showed some mercy, and chose not to make her any more uncomfortable than possible.

That's not to say that we didn't enjoy some lovely wake-up sex before we headed to a beautiful and seemingly deserted national park north of here, for a long bike ride. The wind was brisk, the air was dry and surprisingly cool, and the views were spectacular.

We got back here at our hideaway by around 1 pm, time for some relaxation with  books out on the patio, Naturally, Mistress was completely naked, working on eliminating those tan lines.  I was mulling the thought of tying her to the lounge chair and unleashing the Hitachi, but just then some late afternoon clouds and winds popped up, cooling things off considerably. It seemed like a good time to adjourn to our bedroom for a nap, which turned into a late afternoon "matinee" with Slave commencing things with some hardcore worship, followed by some slow and tender fucking that I hoped did not disrupt Mistress's slow recovery from that nasty cough.

Sadly, we did have to get out of bed by around 5:30 pm, to attend a dinner party down the road a bit hosted by some friends here from Texas.  Slave was grumbling a bit about this engagement: these are nice folks, but, quite frankly, more like people we work with or know through our kids back in River City. A little too suburban and dull, and not the types who represent the iconoclastic charm of the southwest.

But we knew the food and wine would be good, and it's hard to come up with a good excuse NOT to accept a generous dinner invitation when the folks knew we were here without kids and did not have an early Monday work meeting on our "busy" schedules. ( I did suggest to Mistress in our post coital bliss that we could say she had a relapse,  something involving anthrax. She was not amused!)

Truth be told, once Mistress and Slave began our little adventure in the world of kinky sex, dinners with vanilla types can be a little dull, no matter where they are, or what the view.

These two couples are both in their 50's. Not particularly stylish, and certainly not particularly sexy. Our inside  joke about them is that they need other folks around all the time because they don't seem to enjoy their own company, let alone actually have sex. 

So as we were sitting there, munching on some cheese and crackers before dinner, we were a little   dumbfounded when one of the rather frumpy ladies brought up the subject of ..... you guessed it.... 50 Shades of Grey.

Argh.

She'd been reading it. So have her friends. And then there was that "girl" with her boyfriend on the plane up from Texas, reading it too.

I was keeping my mouth shut. But Mistress had to inject.....

"You know, Mick read it too..... he wanted to see what all the talk was about."

Of course, now that she had embarrassed me, I was tempted to note that it was purely for journalistic purposes, so I could review it in our kinky sex blog.

But I was more.... prudent. 

"It seemed pretty lame to me .... I mean, does anyone know any seemingly hot recent college grads who are still virgins?"

Both of these frumpy ladies looked at me like I was crazy.

"Oh sure..... there are lots of them out there!", they both seemed to say, in unison.

I guess I don't know many girls who go to TCU, SMU and A&M.

I figured it was time for Slave to shut up, just as their attention turned to Mistress.

"So did you read it Molly?",  giving her that knowing look implying the opportunities  she might be missing for a little private finger fiddling when her lumox of a husband was "out with the boys", maybe bowling or hunting  squirrels.

"No.... when Mick told me  how bad it was, I just stuck it on the shelf...."

"But you'd actually like it..... let him read it to you, or you read it to him.... you never know where that might lead...."

All accompanied by a little naughty tittering.

But I was impressed with the way Mistress shut them both down.

"Believe me, that would not be necessary....."

At that point I'm sure we were both imagining what the two Texas moms would think if they got a glance at UCTMW.

Of course, that might be one way to cut off future not enthusiastically accepted dinner invitations.

Candidates for Presidential Cock Cage....

Have no fear dear readers.   "They" (work, cute co-ed, random forces of darkness) could not keep Molly and Mick down for long..... There was some nice wake up sex here on Tuesday morning before we headed down to work together.

And despite a drive home that had Mistress being badgered by various work matters, there was an opportunity for worship before we headed off on a nice bike ride here on the hills of our leafy neighborhood.

Dinner with the cute Co-Ed followed, and then she and Mistress headed down to the local DQ for some mom and daughter bonding time.

Nice.

Mistress was contemplating getting up at 6 am today for a bike ride, but I persuaded her to sleep in a little longer, so that we get get our "exercise" on a more sensual way this morning.

And this evening, Mistress has an evening planned with J.... Let's hope they get a chance to knock the kinks out .... maybe do a little "hump day" humping.  I mean that's where that name comes from right?

Now, briefly, back to the "Fifty Shades" mania we've been commenting on here over the last few weeks. It certainly seemed a little creepy that my 85 year old mother was tuned in enough to wonder if that was the book I got her for Mother's Day.  But stranger still is the video clip I saw on yesterday's news from "The View", when in a "pop culture" quiz, one of the dingbats asked The President of the United States if he could name the soft core phenomenon that was on ladies' bedside tables all over America.

Thankfully, he claimed not to know the answer. But he said he'd check with his wife, who seems to have a bit of  Domme in her, don't you think?

Certainly Michelle is much more the Domme than this previous first lady, though it might have served her well to take a firmer hand with her husband, known for his unruly appetites. If anyone could have used a cock cage with the presidential seal on it, it would have been Bill.

But Mistress wasn't having any of it.

"Did you see that twinkle in his eye, Slave..... I bet he knew exactly what they were asking about, but did not want to fess up."

Nevertheless, I know I'd sleep better at night knowing our POTUS has other things on his mind.

I'm watching the clock here.... knowing that my window of morning nookie window will soon open.  I did not get clear direction from Mistress if this is a "cage day" since she'll be driving her own car, so she can stop at J's love shack on her way home.

I guess I need to clear that ambiguity up.  Better safe than sorry.

Awkward

Before I move on to the meat of today's blog, I want to respond to a comment Suzanne over at All Mine left last night..... Yes, we did have some wake up sex in the Executive Suite yesterday morning.  That's one reason the blog was abbreviated..... I needed to make time not only to edit the darling daughter's senior paper, but also to serve Mistress before she headed out into the brisk morning for a bike ride.

We find that the key to making sure we get our daily quota in is scheduling..... Mistress always tells me what time to wake her up to make sure that there is plenty of time for my morning "devotions".

Prioritizing is the key, all you wannabe Molly and Mick's out there.

And of course it takes attention to the schedule to make sure that Molly gets in some time with her lover J, too.  Yesterday they shared lunch at a local sushi joint while  Slave drove to a neighboring county for some work duties.

And tonight, J will be joining us for dinner here at the UCTMW World HQ, on what will be the last evening of "empty nesting" for a while, with our cute Co-Ed coming home Saturday after a trip with her grandmother and aunt.

As we drove home yesterday, we speculated about the challenges of scheduling time for J and Mistress this summer when both of our daughters will be around before the new school year begins in late August.

"It could be tough, Mistress.... hard to explain who that extra guy sleeping over is...."

"True, Slave.... that might be a little awkward, as the girls like to say....but I suppose we could have him over for dinner if there was no 'hanky-panky'"

"I guess we could just say he's a friend we acquired over the year.... we just need a good cover story...."

If any of you out there have a creative cover story to share with us, please go for it.

And of course there's no reason why Mistress can't have some evenings where a late "meeting" or an over-nite trip can be her explanation why she's not home this summer.

And there was one awkward moment for Slave this week, when I was getting my haircut. My "barber" for the last 20 years or so is a woman maybe a few years younger than me.  A tad frumpy would be one way to describe her. A mom with kids a little older than ours. And as she trimmed my thinning locks Tuesday, with CNN running in the background, we covered the typical range of subjects - the Presidential campaign, our kids' college experiences, the ongoing slow mo ugliness of the John Edwards trial.

Then a story popped up on the news that caught her eye.

"I guess I need to get that Fifty Shades of Grey book.... everybody's talking about it."

Well, I guess I could have just nodded, or expressed a lack of knowledge.  But would that sound like the Mick you know?

"Actually, I read it..... all the buzz got me interested..... pretty lame."

It seemed that her jaw dropped, though at least she didn't nick my ear.

"Oh really..... I hear that some woman gets beat up, and she loves it.... it turns her on? could that be?"

I gave her a quick summary of my review a few blogs back....that it seems written with teenaged girls in mind.... substitute kinky sex for hot vampires and you get the picture.

"And no.... no one gets beat up..... though there is some ritualized spanking that is part of the sex play.... no permanent injuries.."

I guess I could have given her the URL address for UCTMW for a more detailed review, but that might have been a little awkward for her.

 "Hmmmm..... maybe I need to get it.... sounds like good fantasy material....."

See what I mean.

Awkward.

Fifty Shades of Cliches: a UCTMW Book Review

Slave had grown tired of all these news articles about the run-away, kindle stuffing,  word of mouth erotica blockbuster, Fifty Shades of Grey over these last few weeks.

First there was the cover story on the New York Times that caught my eye. Then the snarky column by Maureen Dowd casting aspersions by citing her pal who she claimed was a bona fide dominatrix. (Some of us wondered whether she was quoting herself!)

This week it was  a Newsweek cover story psycho-babbling about  the needs of women to submit as a reaction to the "liberating" stresses of feminism. And there was a counter article in Salon by a purported Domme about the fact that "guys like it too!"  The Entertainment magazines are already casting the movie for us.

So when I saw the whole danged "Fifty Shades" trilogy on sale at the airport book stall last week on my way to DC, I decided it was time for me to put on my UCTMW book reviewer hat and see what the fuss was about. I picked up the first book in the trilogy, and finished it over the weekend.

It was a quick, amusing read, but rest assured that I will not be acquiring volumes 2 and 3.

What we have here seems to be a cleverly marketed cult classic wannabe by author  E L James, "a former TV executive, wife and mother of two", which has all the narrative stylings and linguistic finesse of a Nancy Drew book layered with a veneer of soft core porn.

While her books has been described as  a hit with the housewife set, it is written as if  the target audience is teenaged girls. Think the Vampire books, but substitute for the devastatingly handsome vampire an even more  devastatingly handsome, impossibly rich, 27 year old amateur concert pianist and pilot, named Chrsitian Grey, with  a "Red Room of Pain" in his Puget sound view luxury condo, tricked out with all the bondage parephenalia one could dream about.

 Instead of longing to suck the blood from our virgin  heroine,  recent college grad and English major, Anastasia Steele, this guy would rather tie her down, spank her ass and  force multiple orgasms from her awkward but shapely young body.

What teenaged girl could resist this fantasy?

But the heroine in this book does way too much agonizing, even as she wallows in all those cums, not to mention the stylish Audi, priceless first editions, new Mac Book Pro and sophisticated  wardrobe our hero/villian lavishes on her. All he wants her to do is sign a contract of submission for a three month term, not unlike the one between Slave and Mistress here at UCTMW. But this "contract" has so many out clauses it seems hard to complain about.

And yet.... despite multiple rounds of negotiations, and plenty of concessions from Mr. Grey (only three nights a week? sure baby) , she never can get to "Yes", despite what she describes as her undying love and attraction for her would be Dom.  She just wants "more", can't he understand that?

Particularly annoying for those of us who dabble in this "lifestyle", is that the author seems to go out of her way to judge Mr. Grey for his lovely kinks, while fully exploiting all those kinks to sell her books.

How to explain his perversion?  Well, he was the son of a crack whore, who put cigarettes out on his chest, until he was adopted by a wealthy couple from Bellevue.  But just when things were turning the corner for poor little Christian, he was seduced at 15 by some "witchy" house wife, aka "Mrs. Robinson", who "abused" him as her "sex slave" for a few years until her hubbie discovered their secret.

How come my neighborhood didn't have any women like that as an alternative to the Boy Scouts?

Mr. Grey a guy who can't handle being touched. But he obsesses about "hurting" poor Anastasia before forcing yet more orgasms from her.

So despite all of those hot sex scenes, tossed in every 12 and 1/2 pages or so, the hard part of reading this book is all the angst in between, as poor Ana battles her nagging "subconscious" and "inner goddess", depicted as two little mini-Anas, with one telling her to hold out for "true love" , sans a sore ass, and the other telling her to grovel her way to sexual glory.

Gag.

And then there are the cascading cliches that one has to suffer through to struggle to the end. How many times did I have to read that Mr. Grey "found his release" (but, of course,  only after Ana was "shattered" by her own breathtaking cum)? 

How many times did I have to learn that Ana was intoxicated by the scent of Mr. Grey's freshly washed hair and body wash?

WTF.

What self respecting Dom uses "bodywash"?  Irish Spring, Dial  or Ivory aren't good enough?

 I suspect these books will endlessly circulate through high school lockers and college dorms over the next 5 years, earning E L James countless millions, particularly from the movie rights. But the discerning readers of UCTMW can do so much better when they reload their kindles.