Cult of Jef

When peo­ple find out that I’m a writer, they often rec­om­mend that I read this book or that book and sug­gest that I write some­thing like it.  One of the recent sug­ges­tions had been for an erotic-mystery-thriller.  I wasn’t sure exactly what an erotic-mystery-thriller was, so I decided to pick it up and give it a go.

Since erotic was the first word in the descrip­tion, I had antic­i­pated that the book might read like a porn movie, which are very sim­i­lar to Rodgers and Ham­mer­stein musi­cal, except instead of hav­ing a char­ac­ter erupt into song at the drop of a hat, the actors have sex every five minutes.

I started the book at home and got about 100 pages into with­out any sexy time; how­ever, I liked the protagonist’s voice, the crime was intrigu­ing, and there seemed to be twist at the end of every chap­ter that kept me turn­ing pages.  But all the action seemed to be from the waist up.

The next morn­ing, I boarded the train for work and stum­bled into the first sex scene.  I peered over the top of the book to check to see if any­body was watch­ing me, like the other peo­ple sud­denly knew that I tip-toed into the dirty part of the book.   I returned to read­ing and after a few para­graphs I felt–how do I put this?–one of those “periscope up” moments com­ing on.

I imme­di­ately low­ered the book to crotch level and started think­ing about base­ball, Mother Teresa, road­kill, and any­thing remotely unsexy, while I sucked in deep breaths.  The last thing I wanted to hap­pen was for another pas­sen­ger to point at me and scream, “Hey, let that Boy Scout out of that pup tent in your pants!”  In a nut­shell, I was mortified.

Obvi­ously, I just needed to put the book down until I returned home that evening; how­ever, I wanted to know what hap­pened to the char­ac­ters and who the killer was.  I couldn’t wait, though.  I had to find out what hap­pened next.  Nat­u­rally, I thought I’d just thumb past the sex scene, but when I got there, I real­ized some­thing impor­tant hap­pened because they were no longer speak­ing to each other.  I had to read the sex scene to find out what happened.

If I had been seated, it wouldn’t have been a prob­lem, but there were too many women, elderly folks, and dis­abled peo­ple on the train for me to sit down.  I tried turn­ing my back to the rest of the car, but then I looked sus­pi­cious and the MARTA police­man started watch­ing me.  Finally, I slid my back­pack off my shoul­der and held it ad an odd angle to cover myself while I fin­ished the sex scene.  Just as I fin­ished, the train pulled into my sta­tion and I disembarked.

I thought I was safe for the ride home that evening, but no–the cou­ple had such a good time that they imme­di­ately had to get it on again.  What’s up with that?  Who does that in real life?  And why did it take these char­ac­ters so long?  It’s not like that in real life.  If one per­son man­ages achieve orgasm before the other starts snor­ing, it’s con­sid­ered a suc­cess.  Again, I reached for my backpack.

I read more of the book that night at home, but the char­ac­ters seemed to still be angry with each other–or at least tak­ing cold show­ers.  The fol­low­ing morn­ing, as soon as I boarded the train, they were paw­ing at each other again.  And it was the same thing on my trip home, and the next day.  By the time I got to work, I was crav­ing a cigarette–and I don’t smoke.

So, gen­tle­men, I do not rec­om­mend read­ing read­ing any­thing sexy on pub­lic trans­porta­tion, unless you’re seated or you’re wear­ing extremely baggy pants.  And if you see me wear­ing a trench coat on the train in August, I’m going to tell you that I’m read­ing the bible.