Protective bawdiness

Great Moments from last night's reading
Book: My Fair Captain
Author: J. L. Langley
Spoiler level: medium

Well! In honor of man-love Monday over at Lisabea’s and Sula’s blogs, and also being somewhat observed at Tumperkin’s blog, I would like to pay tribute to an outstanding moment from My Fair Captain, the gay outer space Regency romance that’s all the rage right now.

There are two - nay, three things I enjoyed in this highly scandalous and delicious scene. Imagine: young Aiden steals into the older and more experienced Captain Nate’s bedroom in order to catch a glimpse of the cock ring he was so shocked to discover during an earlier moment of mild impropriety. Aiden hides behind a chair as Nate comes out of the shower, but not before accidentally dropping a drawing pencil on the floor. Oops - does Nate see it? Aiden thinks not - phew! - but the fair reader suspects otherwise.

Nate then flops onto the bed, naked, and proceeds to masturbate rather wantonly, while imagining, out loud, a totally bawdy scene between him and Aiden. I won’t give things away, but it gave me some psychological insight into the practice of fisting that was heretofore missing from my pantheon of sexual knowledge. Of course the reader suspects Nate is purposely trying to steer young Aiden away from the roguish likes of him. It doesn’t really work, being that Aiden gets off on it rather heartily. After, Aiden runs away the first chance he gets.

Number one, I liked the scene itself - I’ve never seen anything like it. It was unexpected, creative and believable for this world. Two, I liked the way Nate’s motives aren’t confirmed right away - you suspect he knew Aiden was there, but you don’t get Nate’s side of the experience until a bit later. I found myself thinking, Well, maybe he really didn’t know Aiden was there. So then it was a highly entertaining surprise to find out how much Nate knew about what was happening. And thirdly, I rather enjoyed the characterization of Nate here.

Nate, I have to say, has wonderful intentions around not compromising the virtue of young Aiden, but in practice, he really doesn’t do a great job of keeping his boundaries. He wants to be good…yet not! It’s the perfect portrait of temptation - you edge a bit closer, often in the guise of resistance - and then closer and closer, always with a seemingly good reason, and then it’s too late! And you wouldn't have it any other way.