Paris, Champagne, Music....

Friday, glorious Friday! I just picked up my CSA box bursting with sweet pea pods, artichokes, asparagus and—be still my beating heart—TWO boxes of lovely strawberries. Plus I’m digging in to my latest literary treat, Naughty Paris: A Lady’s Guide to the Sexy City, that I learned about on Lauren Elkin’s blog the other day. It’s full of gems like this quote from Isabel Allende:

“For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting time.”

(I must add that this book has me fantasizing about a trip to Gay Paree with all of my erotica-writing lady friends. What fun we’d have!)

But best of all, the effervescent Jeremy Edwards (who, in keeping with the French theme, I like to think of as “a glass of champagne in a fedora”) has offered up an auditory amuse-bouche from his early erotica-writing days for our delectation.

Here’s Jeremy:

Though my erotica career didn't begin in earnest until 2005, it had a little "prelude" (since we've been talking about classical music) ten years earlier. The unpublished novella that I wrote then--which started out as a proposed full-length novel--had some intrinsic flaws, as did my assessment of the market at that time. But there were a few passages I still liked a decade later, and I developed a couple of them into short stories. Thus, the auditeuristic flash piece below was
published at Ruthie's Club in 2006, as part of a suite of Jeremy pieces collectively entitled "Liquid Intimacies." When I revised this individual item yet again last year, I renamed it "Alicia's Music."

"Alicia’s Music" by Jeremy Edwards

Her apartment door was painted coral pink with navy-blue trim. I was glad I had accepted the casual invitation.

Alicia greeted me with a grin and a handshake. “Make yourself at home,” she said brightly as she stepped aside to let me in. “I’ll be right back. I was just about to pee.”

I had entered from the hallway directly into the kitchen, a space made pleasant by the low-volume cool of some modern jazz disc. Alicia now disappeared through a door on the far side of this room. I crossed to the table and seated myself facing the windows, through which I hoped to catch a final glimpse of the sunset.

Sitting there, I became conscious of the titillating music of Alicia’s fountain as it tinkled exuberantly into the bowl. For a moment, I wondered if it would be courteous to avoid listening--I couldn’t help hearing, but I could try not to listen--yet I had a feeling that she wouldn’t mind. So I relaxed, and I noticed how the sound of her intimate cascade mingled sweetly with the round, cheerful vibraphone notes that bubbled softly out of the speakers.

Our eyes met when she emerged. It was obvious that I must have heard her music. She blushed a little and smiled, shyly but impishly. Then she broke the tension.

“You haven’t lived till you’ve listened to me urinate,” she laughed.