Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey (2 page)

BEHIND EVERY AUTHOR, there is a team. In addition to the Ab Fab writers in this book who wrote under extreme deadline and turned around corrections at lightning speed, I want to thank Louise Fury, my agent, who came up with the idea for the book and brought it to me; Debra Hyde, who kept me on track and pitched in on a moment’s notice; and Leah Wilson, who was everything an author could dream of in an editor.

E
VERYWHERE YOU GO people are talking about
Fifty Shades of Grey
, from the supermarket (where it is on sale!) to the airport to PTA meetings and even church socials. It is the book of the year, if not the decade.

You all know the stats. It has sold more copies than the Harry Potter series in a mere six months. It has dominated the
New York Times
bestseller list since April 2012. As of this writing, 32 million copies have sold this year in the US alone.

So the real question is: Why did this book, and its sequels, capture our attention now?

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I
WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT
, as a literary agent who has toiled in the erotica fields for decades, I love the Fifty Shades trilogy. Its success has shown the world that a strong market exists for erotic fiction written, edited, and purchased by women.

To me, Fifty Shades is smut for women. I consider myself a “feminist pornographer,” which always raises a few eyebrows. But I believe this movement of women claiming their own smut is part of the evolution of feminism—proudly owning your sexuality is a big part of equality.

When I was a young feminist, I was given
Story of O
by a lover, and I was offended by it—not because of its overt subject matter but because I knew that I was not a submissive woman (I didn’t know the terminology back then; now every young woman will!). I’ve wrestled with this my entire life in my personal relationships, and I assumed that the submissive woman fantasy was a male one and part of the patriarchy.

Until I became an editor of erotic literature. I quickly learned that the fantasy of complete surrender to an alpha male is the leading daydream of the majority of American women.

As a young feminist, I equated all romance with submission, and I looked down on them both. I didn’t think it was possible to be submissive and a feminist, just as old-school feminists were appalled that their well-educated daughters wanted to stay home and be mothers or learn to knit and bake. In a recent review of
The Hunger Games
movie, a feminist reviewer complained about the apparent need for “romance” in what is otherwise an action-based dystopian story. I used to decry this kind of “unnecessary” addition of romance, too, but I secretly went to romantic comedies alone so no one would see me cry. I was ashamed of my romantic side.

Until I came to see that you can be a feminist and a romantic. It’s okay. And it’s really okay to want, and believe in, a happy ending—even when you know that in reality 50 percent of all marriages fail. These movies and books are an escape, and a hope.

We’ve been saying for the past several decades that feminism is about having choices, and one of those is the freedom to indulge in our erotic fantasies. Everyone wants to fall in love and be swept away by its power, even men. But they don’t have the emotional freedom women have. They don’t have the emotional
choices
we have. In Western culture, you will never see a story about a man being swept away by love, unless it’s a comedy or a cautionary tale.

Fifty Shades brings all these issues and more to the surface. But more than that, it has proven, once and for all, that women love to read smut with a happy ending.

Looking through my erotica reader and writer lens, I foresee that this phenomenon means that a whole new marketplace awaits these stories.
Story of O
is fifty years old and the current edition is a dated translation (I’d love to see it in contemporary language). We need new fantasies, which E. L. James has given us. I am awed to see the birth of a new erotica classic. (I had the same feeling when I watched Harry Potter become a children’s literature classic in my time.)

Some have wondered how a “classic” can be so “poorly written.” But I contend that it is not poorly written, but rather written in an everywoman’s voice, a necessary part of its success. I once worked with an author who used plebian language (bringing me my first experience with the phrase “Holy crap!”). When she returned my edits, she told me that she did indeed know the word “simultaneously,” but when she was fantasizing, she always used the phrase “at the same time as,” and she knew that her readers did as well. When she saw the word “simultaneously” in fiction, she knew it had been edited up to
New York Times
standards, which was all well and good, but not the way she spoke in her head. These books are about being drawn into the fantasy—and E. L. James expertly takes her readers on that journey.

I hope Fifty Shades will be the tip of a rather large iceberg of erotic empowerment. And I hope that these books will usher in a publishing tidal wave of female-centered commercially successful erotica, giving women a new voice for sexual, political, and financial choices. It’s what we should’ve had all along.

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HIS IS THE WAY
I look at Fifty Shades. But there are many, many others, from what its story says about us as a society to the role of women in and out of relationships to our hidden fantasy lives. This book offers fifty of those ways, from readers who love it and a few readers who don’t, because their voices are important, too.

Is Fifty Shades literature? Postfeminism? Or just the end of civilization as we know it?

I hope you will find all of those answers in here.

And then continue discussing amongst yourselves.

Lori Perkins

August 2012

M.J. ROSE

T
HE SHEETS WERE SMOOTH. Cool. And that smell! Fresh linens scented with jasmine and orange blossom. She breathed in deeply as she settled down. For a few moments, she concentrated on just being there. On relaxing. On trying to let go of the minutiae … of all the ordinary and unimportant million things that had happened. Or barely happened.

She knew he wouldn’t mind if it took her a little while. He was patient. He would wait for her. Yes, he would wait for her.

The day had seemed like it would never end. There were arguments at work that had been exhausting. Her family was always demanding but today they had been relentless in their needs. She’d thought this would never come.

Her fingertips made circles on the bedding. She listened to the jazz she’d put on. The slow, hot music was perfect. Just loud enough to drown out the sounds beyond this room … beyond this house … beyond this world. Drown it all out so she didn’t have to be aware of anything but what was going on inside of
this cocoon she was spinning around herself. Where no one else was invited.

No one but him.

She’d dressed for him, putting on a thin nightgown that clung to her and skimmed her skin. A pressure so light it was like butterfly kisses. For now, the silk was pulled down demurely, covering her to her ankles. Only the soles of her feet and her toes were exposed to the cool air.

Even with his first words her breasts began to push against the fabric. More of his words. More push. Even gossamer would have been too constricting now. Her breasts were ready to be released. To be touched. To be squeezed and pinched and …

No, not yet … all in time … because there was time … with him there was always time, and what a luxury that was.

As she relaxed into the act, he told her more about what he wanted and her imagination soared.

How would her skin feel when he slapped her?

How would her mouth be able to take so much of him inside her?

How would she react to being bound?

Scared? Excited?

Would it be frightening to do only what he allowed?

How could she accept being controlled?

She could accept it because this was control by invitation. This time she wanted to be told. Yes. Wanted him to demand she perform for him and do these things to him, and she wanted him to do those things to her.

It was all new. It was heady. She’d never imagined any of this before him. She would have been ashamed if anyone else had asked all this of her.

But not him.

The sensation between her legs intensified and teased. Hovering deliciously. The twinges and very first throb of an orgasm beckoned. Maybe there would even be more than one. Hard to come by more than one in most situations.

But this wasn’t most situations.

This was a sexual heaven. This was being taking by the hand and led gently into a different world where nothing was wrong … nothing was obscene … nothing was forbidden.

Orange moved to red. Red moved to scarlet. Scarlet pulsed to purple. Lightning jolted inside her. She flared.

Yes, he had been patient … but now he was demanding. He was a frightening lover. Yet, because he made sure she understood the word
love
was encapsulated in the word
lover
, she was safe. Everything he was suggesting, was insisting on, was all for one reason … to take her further into the colors … into the music … into the smells and the touches … all to make her feel more … and feel more deeply.

She didn’t understand how such a simple act made excitement like this build in her. How it aroused and hardened her nipples. How it made it so she could barely keep her hands away from the warm, wet space between her legs.

But she had to keep her hands away. Because he was telling her to. Because he was demanding she wait until he allowed her to have it. Because if she did, he told her, it was going to be better than she could conceive of. And she believed him. These promises he was making, here in the dark, in her private velvet and jasmine-scented secret garden were like no other promises she’d ever heard.

If she obeyed … if she followed where he led … he pledged she would find that deepest purple answer she craved.

There was sex and then there was ecstasy. There were orgasms and then there were orgiastic mind-numbing experiences. The kind that she disappeared into and got lost inside of. The kind that only he gave her. And only in this place and only in this way.

Passion could obliterate reality. She’d learned that from him. She’d found out that whatever you thought you knew about yourself, you could learn more. That every pleasure could be heightened. And turned to pain that turned back into more
intense pleasure. She’d discovered that just thinking about this man, about his desires, his yearnings, and his demands created waves inside of her. She’d learned she could think about what he wanted and the waves would build. He’d taught her to block out the world and ride those waves and travel to other worlds she’d never been to before.

And no one could take any of it away from her. No one could interfere. No one could say she was wrong for giving into the fantasies he offered. No one could tell her she was dirty or pagan or that she was breaking her vows or hurting her children or abandoning her responsibilities or negating the teachings of her church or her temple. No one could stop her from the delight and joy and bliss that she now knew was her right—and such a simple right to claim at that.

Now he was asking for more. Demanding it.

As she gave him what he wanted, her own moans—throaty and raw—drowned out the music. Her own scent—the musky rich incense of her own heated cunt—overwhelmed the jasmine and orange blossom perfume. She was floating on the waves … waves he shaped by blowing gently on her ocean. Giving her the ride of her life. Again. And then, yes, again.

This wasn’t about power or pain … not about risk or reward … not about fidelity … this was what she took for herself. She gave herself up to him and his fiery, arousing words. And in giving, she got. He gave her burning, roiling seas that grew and grew inside of her.

Fingers moved on her lips. Teasing. Tickling. Rubbing in exactly the right way, in exactly the right rhythm. Slowing. Then hurrying. Slowing. Then hurrying. Inside, her seas burned hotter. His words were waves rising higher. Receding … bringing her to the brink. Receding. And then to the brink again. And then to the brink for the last time.

Her gift to herself was him. His gift to her was freedom. And fantasy. The ability to be a wild and abandoned sexual adventurer in this safe place under the covers … between the
covers … because this is what erotica is … this is what it does. This is the gift of it.

Is there a secret? Yes. Anaïs Nin and Pauline Réage and Anne Rampling and Erica Jong all knew it. E. L. James knows it.

It is the secret behind all of our writing. And our reading. Arousal starts in the mind. And grows in the mind. The brain is the most erogenous zone in a woman’s body. That is our secret. And it is what we share.