Erotica Harem

Hey MathGuy,

Here's a review for you. Hope you find it helpful.

Traci

Plot:
Sean begins the tale in a bar searching for perfection. he finds someone to dance with, Gil a hairy studly man with a southern drawl. They hit it off, go home together and have sex. he wakes in the morning, inspects Gil's bathroom for some sort of imperfection and finds none. Gil has to take off for the day and warns Sean not to go into the spare room. Isn't that what they told Pandora? Don't open the box? So anyhow, he sneaks a peek and finds a dunjeon of sex toys. Oh how delightful.
I won't give away the ending, but it's very Fight Club. Loved that movie.

Character Growth:
The real growth is Sean facing himself. Ack. Scary.

Settings and Descriptions: are fabulous all except for where you left me wanting. Being that this is in the erotica forum, I wanted more explicit description in the sex scenes. Erotic romance and Erotica means no closed doors, no purple prose to cover what's going on during the sex act and no "and then they woke up the next day..." You decide if that's a path you want to take. It's the difference between Erotic Romance and Romance but Sasha tells me even Romance has open doors these days.

My Opinion:
The story is strong. Characters are deep and believable. You're writing dark horror really. Because the sex is so light, it feels like horror to me and not erotica. Sex is so light--my goodness, I've been reading smut too long. For shame!
I think it's a great tale with a Twilight Zone feel in the end. Pretty darn scary. I loved reading it.

Edits:

General Stuff I noticed:
Overuse of character names. This is really delicate in M/M. I noticed it mainly when Sean is alone. When you have a tic, go back to those parts and buy a pronoun where you can. No need to name him if he's the only man present. He/His etc.

Your style seems to be to use 'and' in place of a comma in some places like here: The aroma of garlic and ginger and pork filled the apartment. I recommend the comma when stringing adjectives.


Specific Stuff:
His lean torso erupted from his t-shirt, as though struggling against the bonds of the crisp comma blue fabric. His black comma denim jeans sported a sharp crease that broke at his black comma high-top Reeboks. His longish comma blonde hair fell in apparent casual disarray that took him hours to get just so.

-One of my pub's style sheets has commas between modifying adjectives if they do not modify each other.
-Not sure you need denim to describe jeans since they are most commonly made of that fabric.
-Old school stated blond for the masculine and blonde for the feminine. TimM will argue with me and state blond for Americans regardless of gender. In this case, since he's a male, I'd say blond.

The man's mouth moved comma but the din of the bar cloaked his words.
-compound sentences with conjunctions need a comma. Again, this is old school grammar. There are arguments to the contrary. Use what's best for you. In smaller sentences, some authors choose to omit the comma.

He wore black denim slacks, boots, and a dark blue flannel shirt.
-Do slacks come in denim?

"Ah ain't got no job yet, Ah'm still lookin'.
-comma splice. Either make two sentences or do the magical semi colon.

Some swayed together in close embrace, others slipped to MIA: the bar for beer.

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
-Even though you're quoting lyrics, I think you'd need punctuation. But I'm not sure. Would have to draw out the evil, orange Chicago Manual of DOOM.

Sean's let his head roll to one side, then rested it on Gil's shoulder.
-omit the apostrophe & the 's'

The keychain on the counter beckoned to him. He ran one finger over the key labeled "Spare Room."
-I'd say: ...over the key labeled: Spare Room.
(Reason being is it's not dialogue.)

A trail of discarded clothing led from the kitchen, down the hall, past the spare room, and ending at Gil's bed.
-ending should be ended


Sean's body drifted beneath Gil's, wracked with pleasure. His mind and his soul were consumed in a crescendo of sensation. Together their bodies sang glad hosannas of exaltation and adoration. When at last the climax arrived, Sean was transfigured to pure sensation, his mind and his soul and his spirit disappeared in that eternal moment. Only in love and death does the body so thoroughly conquer the spirit, but in love the spirit triumphs and is resurrected to live again.
-This is beautiful. However, it is not explicit. When you describe the sex scenes, if you're shooting for romance, you're fine with this. It's more an exploration of what he's thinking. If you're shooting for erotic romance, more description of what's going on with bodies is needed here.