The Reading Room -- Fic: Monopoly by Kitty Fisher

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

http://www.thecircuitarchive.com/tca/archive/5/monopoly.html
or
http://hatstand.slashcity.net/kitty/mono.html

Monopoly by Kitty Fisher hits all of my buttons. It's what I consider gritty BDSM but gritty really makes me happy in this case. I will read almost any BDSM story that is fully consensual and I can take a lot of rough sex between two men. This story gives us two hard men fucking to within an inch of their lives. I fully realise that this isn't a story for everybody. It's definitely an acquired taste. *g*

I think the first few paragraphs nicely set up the scene. It's not love, we're led to believe from the lead in paragraphs. It's dirty sex between two men.

Doyle is waiting:

Doyle straightened, listening to almost silence as the TV clicked off. Without the brash noise the alley seemed to close in. Shadowy, like the molasses his nan had used to make ginger cake; thickly cloying, shiny, sweeter for his own anticipation of the final result. He licked his lips, and plucked at the untucked hem of his T-shirt, wafting air. He was lightly dressed. No gun. No jacket. Nothing to get in the way... of whatever was coming. Whatever Bodie brought. Wanted. Gave...

This paragraph is just about perfect to me. I really like the description of what Doyle thinks of Bodie's confidence anywhere :

A shadow-shift at the edge of his perception, and a figure approached from his left. Unexpected when the road was a dog-leg of alley to his right. Left was... what? Nothing. Something. Somewhere Bodie knew. But then Bodie was at home in the strangest of places. In back alleys. In the secret hours between midnight and dawn.

And this description of Bodie makes me all tingly:

Black polo neck under a black biker's jacket, scratched and dulled with age, black jeans, boots. Unsmiling, his face hollowed and sharpened in the muted streetlight. Doyle knew -- just from the tension in the wide shoulders -- that Bodie was hard. Needy. He felt his sphincter tighten, felt his balls crawl upwards as his cock surged. Hungry Bodie. A dark night and a secluded alleyway. And games as expiation, as benediction. The slow twist of time stopped, here.

The game starts and we're treated to lines like this:

Not fighting. Lost on the cusp of the illusion of helplessness, the reality of submission, Doyle shivered. Hot night air on his skin. Nipples hard, sensitised beyond belief. When Bodie smiled Doyle arched into him, whimpering helplessly, saliva wet on his wide-stretched lips, cooling on his chin.

And just so further emphasise that this is consensual, we're told:

Jesus, he wanted this so much. Wanted Bodie. To fuck him. Hard. Though the tongue was making thought impossible. Making everything impossible, except simple need. Enough to make him sob. Breathlessly, wordlessly begging, the tension rippling in his arms as he held on, stretched and bent, held just as Bodie wanted him.

There is pain and pleasure, and hard fucking and more pain, until Doyle gets what he wants. Until we find out why they picked this night, this alley, this time together to celebrate:

Looking up he (Doyle) caught a smile that showed a flash of white teeth. "I'm alive. I didn't die."

"Just as well." Doyle slid his face between the jacket and Bodie's neck. Snuffled skin. Sweat and animal and scent. Life in the pulse of blood. "Don't scare me, cretin. It's not good for me."

And then the lads toddle off together to head to home and another sort of game and maybe Doyle will now get his turn.

So... Rough story, pain mixed with pleasure, some straight-out painful moments, and by the end, trust and love. I've read almost every story in my three fandoms classified as BDSM and I consider this one the best short story in the genre. I like the timing of the sentences and the way the author constructed them. I like the "textures" we're given of the entire experience: the alley and the clothes and the sex, their reactions and feelings. And for me the complete trust we know exists between Bodie and Doyle is clearly conveyed.

Everything in this story is so easily pictured here for me, so them for me that every time I read it, I'm left with a good feeling that they'll always be there for each other and always cover each other's backs -- in more ways than one.

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yes, totally agree! In life we're very rarely told everything up front, it all comes to us in a series of revelations, little moments where we make connections between one thing and another, and when writers use this in a story, like Kitty does here, I find it so much more powerful as a result - as powerful as real life, which means that I can be dragged in and lost in the story, which is what I want from my reading!

So if we'd actually been watching B/D at this moment (*sighs*) we wouldn't have known the background to it unless/until we heard one of those telling moments - something said, a particular kind of touch or look. And our curiosity in watching in the first place would have come from wanting to know what was going on - not just what they were doing, but why. Otherwise, why not leave? Why watch/read anything?

Once we know what we think is the "full story" our attention wavers, we might actually walk away from something/turn over the channel - it's the same in fic. If there'd been any sort of explanation up front about what was going on, it would have taken away immeasurably from the story - because what would be the point of continuing to watch? That's when it would have become PWP - if we were watching without wondering about anything! (Whee - there's that little moment again! *g*)