The Secret Book

Turning yourself on, making yourself laugh through writing

I enjoyed your recent post “I Like the Consequences” and it got me to thinking about my own situation post-divorce.

Before getting married, I had only ever been with one other man and then was married 11 years. After the divorce I played the field – a very fun, very far and wide field from dating a Dom and being his sub to a Brazilian wine tour driver and a longer than healthy stint with an excellent but struggling masseuse. Austin is quite the MILF playground if you’re giving off “the vibe.”

One of my exploits that year wasn’t local though and we began to write an erotica book together, he would write one chapter and I the next. The scene was different each time but always involved a couple. Sometimes taking on a 3rd. Always squeezing in extreme, excellent, explicit sex when they could find the time during their busy lives of parenting and buttoned down corporate jobs. Both partners were always SEEN, always wanting and always satiated on one another. Roles of control would switch back and forth. It was glorious. His contributions were just as good and creative as mine and I got addicted. We wrote 10 chapters over the course of a year. But in the end, that man was 1500 miles away, emotionally unavailable and never a long term prospect from the start. When it ended, so did our secret book.

I am now in a loving, long term, monogamous relationship with a man I adore BUT he does not do the sexy stories. I tried and he played along, but the writing was miserable and I found myself judging him and questioning his whole persona unfairly as a result. Not everyone can be gifted in writing erotica. Or should this be something I look at more deeply? It does make me wonder if I am giving up some side of myself that I had only just begun to discover and relish. I think perhaps, like your subscriber, I should continue on with the chapters on my own or keep a sex diary. 

I miss my penpal and what he pulled out of me or perhaps what I pulled out of myself. I wonder how I keep it?

I’m tempted to share a chapter from the secret book, but realize I don’t have the cajones. Maybe one day...

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Submitter*, thank you so much for this story**. 

One of the best parts about running this Substack is the research rabbit holes I go down, occasioned by your stories. Let’s agree as a group that “research” is used very loosely here, more like “Googling until I find something delightful,” and, oh my God – this week, I absolutely did.

Now, a disclaimer. I never want to give advice on this Substack, because advice is so subjective and besides, I’m no sex expert. But submitter, I’m gonna go ahead and write this post in the spirit of advice, actually? 

I’ll leave final conclusions up to you.

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As with “I Like the Consequences,” I wanted to link the contents of the secret book to the erotic act of writing itself, because I get it. I get how sexy writing can be. Totally. World-building with a collaborator, turning each other on, and it’s a hot office romance? Here for it.

The problem is, I’m a boorish little snob about writing. As a PhD dropout from an English Literature program, I marinated in the canon for years. Here’s a short list of contemporary literary fiction rules:

• be specific in your details

• be extremely careful with italics

• never use exclamation points

• never, under any circumstances, use double exclamation points

Ok, I’m being facetious, but truly. Double exclamation points do not exist in literature!!

Anyway. I give you this background because rarely have I deigned to read non-literary fiction. Sci-fi or fantasy: quite beneath me, because again, snobbery. Spaceships? Please. Dragons? How gauche. Wizards? Almost skipped Harry Potter entirely.

Almost.

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Folks, I’ve been missing out on a lot of joy in my life. So, so much joy. 

Because when I got this story, I Googled “best erotica podcasts,” and came across something so wonderful: Fangasm, a podcast devoted entirely to ridiculous fan fic erotica. 

I say “ridiculous” with nothing but pure and unadulterated love, because I’ve been listening nonstop. Right now I’m on Season 3, which takes the characters you know and love from Harry Potter and makes them have sex. Not just any characters! Harry and Draco Malfoy. 

The premise is gloriously unhinged. 

The days of Hogwarts behind them, Draco now edits a Gossip Girl-esque magazine called Cock Critique, where he anonymously posts reviews of dick pics. It’s like Yelp? But of dick pics. And there is only one reviewer. Which is Draco, whose critiques are withering. Withering! 

One day, Harry is sitting around with his friends reading Cock Critique, when he casually comes out to them, they just as casually say “that’s great,” and then…everyone decides to anonymously submit their own dick pics. Brilliant. But sadly, Harry receives a “T” for “Troll.” His photography is bad. Guess you can’t be good at everything. 

Harry also receives a “TA” for “try again” however, which he takes to heart. He decides to take photography classes (...to improve his dick pics! Are you dying?), which are taught by none other than Draco Malfoy. At this point in the season, it’s unclear whether the photography classes are an MLM-adjacent feeder program to Cock Critique? Regardless, the sexual tension between Draco and Harry is instant. 

Harry gets off on Draco’s photography knowledge and generalized rudeness. 

Draco gets off on Harry’s humble photography ambitions and undeniable celebrity. 

Little does either of them know that Draco Malfoy is Cock Critique, and Harry Potter is trying to improve his “T” rating!

It’s a little Jane Austen, in the you-hate-them-but-you-want-them kind of way. Also, there are distinct humiliation kink overtones with Harry, and Draco’s definitely a Dom. 

Folks, I haven’t even gotten to the actual sex yet, but I am fully invested.

There’s something so wonderful about writing that is extremely, overly specific with the details (the photography class biz is named “Photo Couture” – I cannot), and clearly poured out of someone’s brain while they were giggling and/or masturbating. Inspired, I downloaded the FanFiction.net app to my phone last night, and as you would suspect: outsider art galore. We do not worry about literary rules here. But we do write a lot about Harry Potter – there are currently 844,595 stories. 

Tom Riddle and his own secret book.

Do you think Daniel Radcliffe reads any of it? 

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Submitter, I realize this post may come off as somewhat myopic. You write erotica, I’m now obsessed with Fangasm and FanFiction.net. Thank you for giving me a reason to go find those. Your erotica sounds hot, the Harry Potter erotica fan fic is also hot, despite how silly I’m making it sound.

One more thing:

It does make me wonder if I am giving up some side of myself that I had only just begun to discover and relish. I think perhaps, like your subscriber, I should continue on with the chapters on my own or keep a sex diary. 

Yes. The answer is yes. 

What I’m currently, voraciously, consuming:

• I think this one is pretty clear.

• Here is the season I was talking about! Please someone listen and squeal with me!

• Your submissions. Keep them coming! I am totally and utterly enthralled. 

• *On that note: I did have to cut down this story for length, submitter. If you feel my edits have not done your story justice, write me again on the submission form and I’ll post the story in all its glory. In the meantime, I’ll look into character limits on the form itself, because while I personally adore long-form stories, Substack data tells me that Internet readers have short attention spans. Shocking I know. 

• **I absolutely think you should share a chapter from the secret book. 

Coming next week:

Join me next Monday, 6/19, for Submit Here’s very first audio dispatch!