Concupiscence - Issue # 39
Text-only stories and a new story series!
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Issue #39
I wanted to write this on Wednesday, but I spent the writing time I had on that day on finishing Once a Sub. And now, I’m left with the option to either wait the entire week, or risk sending you two emails back-to-back. With the relative quiet in the month of February, I thought I’d take that risk.
A New Story Series — Once a Sub
It’s been a long time since I’ve written an Escapade. After the pleasures of writing stories like The Abduction, The Things We Do For Love and more recently, The Fourth Wheel, I had been enamored by the freedom and the scope of experimentation that third person narrative gives. I realized this to the fullest when I wrote the letter from Divya, Since That Day. When I’m writing about my experiences in Escapades, there’s an inherent one-dimensionality to the story — all you can realistically know is about what I saw and what I felt.
That can quickly get repetitive and annoying. After all, there are only so many ways in which I can say that I found that thing that she did, sexy.
There have been very few published stories this year. Notably, I’ve paused The Other Men and Body of Words. I published the first part of It’s Official, only to pause writing it. Then there’s The Taxi Driver, which is supposed to be a sprawling frame story — a writing device which I’ve never used (it’s a favorite of Chetan Bhagat, by the way). I’ve been teasing new story ideas for the past couple of Issues because, well, they have only been ideas.
Once a Sub is not the first time I’ve written about Bhumi. My first attempt at writing about her, was two-years ago. Since then, I have changed the way I write and publish here, and that story was reverted to drafts. I decided to pick up the story again, because I couldn’t shake off thinking about Bhumi after all these years.
It started when I met someone recently. It was an accident, a happy accident, and it happened because of a rather unfortunate power outage in my building. I was working out of a Starbucks that day, and had reached ten minutes after it opened, to get the best seat I wanted. But, a girl had beaten me to it.
I took the seat beside her, annoyed at the second-best offering, but with designs to take her seat as soon as she left. But, she never left. And worst of all, she didn’t seem to be even working. She had her laptop opened, but was on the phone all along. She kept hiding what she was doing, with her dense curly hair, as if it was an exam, and I was trying to copy what she was writing.
An hour later, I got up for a refill, and that’s when I saw her for the first time. Our eyes met, and both of us quickly averted our gazes. But, God, she was beautiful. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she could’ve been if she wanted to. The simple symmetrical contours of her chin, expressive brown eyes, and the way her long curly hair framed her face — simple and beautiful.
When I sat down next to her, I couldn’t help but think about another girl who was simple and beautiful, who had a beautiful round face, was curvy and thicc like the girl beside me in that Starbucks. I had met her 4 years ago, in an unfortunate month — March, 2020. The country shutdown a week a later, and we never met again, until, we had nothing left to talk about.
I couldn’t find her number on my phone. So, I went to the place we had first met — Reddit. And, well, all our chats were deleted. I pinged her anyway, hoping that she still has the app installed.
I’m talking about Bhumi. Texting her, reminded me of the giddy feeling of meeting someone from a place like Reddit, with the overt and obscene intentions of dominating her.
Right there in the Starbucks, I re-read the unpublished draft about her. I wanted to re-write the story about Bhumi and her. I procrastinated work, to write the first few paragraphs. Writing erotica in public is not advised for beginners. First of all, there’s the urge to simply stare and think about what you are about to write, while nursing a growing hard-on in the uncomfortable outdoor trousers. Then, there’s the risk of looking at someone with a lustful gaze, when you don’t intend to.
The girl beside me walked to the counter for something, and when she was walking back, our eyes met again. I was thinking of Bhumi, and the things I’d done to her that day. My mouth slightly opened, my eyes glassy with carnal desires. It took me a moment to realize that neither of us had averted our eyes.
I smiled at her. And no, I do not just smile at a random girl. But, I wasn’t mentally present in that Starbucks.
That girl squinted at me and looked away. She walked past me, and sat down at her table. The table was 2 feet away from me. I looked to my side, and saw her hide herself, looking at phone, using her dense curly hair as the shield.
I had to say something, else my smile would just be a creepy attempt, to anglicize Indian small-talk scene.
“Excuse me,” I said, in the deepest voice I could muster.
She looked startled. She turned toward me, the brown eyes still squinted. She didn’t remove her hand from her chin.
“Umm, I forgot my laptop’s charger. Can I use yours for half an hour?”
She looked at my laptop, it was a MacBook that she had. Oh, I had my charger in the bag, I’m not a fool to go out for an entire workday without a charger. And besides, I am too old to not have charge-anxiety with my laptop. I’m from an era, when two-hours of usage on battery was the best case scenario.
“Are you sure it will work?” she spoke.
“I hope so,” I turned toward her.
When I returned home the next morning, I couldn’t get the idea of re-writing Bhumi out of my mind! And, as of writing this, I’m happy that I’ve reached the last chapter of writing it, with some difficulty in balancing between raging hard-ons and being objective.
The second part of Once a Sub will be out tomorrow, and the third part is already available to my Patreons.
Text-Only Version of “After a Good Date”
Starting with Once a Sub — 1, all my future stories, will have a text-only version. The way I implement this, is my having a separate section on After a Good Date called Text-Only. It’s a section, just like Dominoes of Desire or Escapades.
I tried setting up a Wordpress blog, but I didn’t like the look-and-feel and also the repetitive work of copy and pasting the stories. And, the learning-curve of getting just the right-feel was too much for my at the moment.
The content of the text-only versions will be the same, except for one major difference — there will be no erotic images. You can scroll through the story, and not have to worry if you’d suddenly see a naked woman. I’m assuming that this will be especially good for reading discreetly, during your commute or say, at a crowded coffee shop.
Every story from now on, and some stories of the past, will have a Text-only version linked in the beginning. The only “art” you will see is the After a Good Date logo, which is pretty decent. And, if you ever have to send a link to a story, to someone whom you don’t know how they will react to erotica, maybe a text-only version is a better way to go about it, without turning up the obscenity. So, bookmark this link, if you want to!
That’d be all for this Issue. Until the next one, take care and happy reading!