Someday I hope to meet a man cool enough to accept that I write about sex
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
Did I ever tell you about the time I wrote erotica for a living ? primarily bestiality erotica ? and my boyfriend of nearly eight years never knew?
When he asked what I wrote about, I?d say things like, ?Oh. You know. Relationship advice and stuff.?
It?s a good thing he was too busy playing video games and finding ways to ruin my life to care.
We met more than a decade ago at work. I was a supervisor and he was a new employee. He was a bit of a pompous know-it-all, and I disliked him the moment I met him. Unfortunately, he grew on me, and that was my first mistake.
I knew I was in trouble when he started following me around like a puppy dog at the office and I didn?t put him back in his crate. Then when he finished my cold leftover French fries on lunch break after I?d already soaked them in vinegar and smothered them in ketchup, I was smitten.
For the first two years of our relationship, we both worked in an office. For the next two years, I juggled working as a hotel maid with freelance writing. It started off innocently enough. I wrote advertising copy for menthol cigarettes, laser treatments for spider veins, and invisible aligners for teeth.
Then I found an advertisement seeking ghostwriters for taboo erotica, and I figured, ?Why not? What?s the worst that could happen??
In the first thirty days of my new career as a ghostwriter, I wrote 100 short stories about women having sex with dogs, horses, and gorillas. For the first two weeks, I was so horny that I could barely concentrate.
It wasn?t the bestiality aspect of my writing that made me aroused ? that?s not my thing, I swear. It was the constant nonstop descriptions of moist, glistening vaginas and heaving bosoms that did it.
I consistently gave vague answers whenever my boyfriend asked about my fledgling writing career. Although I wouldn?t categorize it as lying exactly, I did provide answers that had nothing to do with sex ? couching the truth in euphemisms such as ?love,? ?romance,? or ?advice for women.? I knew him well enough to know this. He couldn?t handle the truth.
He never asked to read anything I?d written. If he had, I could easily have pointed him in the direction of the sunglasses descriptions and nutritional supplement reviews I?d done before discovering the exciting world of writing smut for a living.
It has been a few years now since I?ve written erotica. The boyfriend and I have been broken up for the same length of time. That?s more than just a coincidence. After we broke up, I felt such a feeling of freedom and relaxation that it was like being on vacation.
I spent three years examining self-care from every angle and putting my shattered mental health back together one jagged shard at a time while my MacBook collected dust in the corner of my room.
Now that I?m actively writing again, I realize that the perfect partner for me will be one who knows and understands that I write about sex. I don?t expect a man to read every word I write just as I don?t expect to swing by his job and inspect his work, and I?m certainly not looking for anyone?s approval.
I just want to be able to admit openly what I do for a living without muttering something about love and romance every time I?m asked, and it?s going to take a really cool guy to help me make that a reality.
