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Unread 08-05-2010, 02:53 AM
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John Whitworth John Whitworth is offline
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Default Competition: Bedhopping

Competition No. 2658: Bed hopping
Lucy Vickery
Wednesday, 4th August 2010
Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition
In Competition No. 2658 you were invited to submit a bedroom scene written by a novelist who would not normally venture into such territory. A wise choice, it seems: even literary giants come a cropper when writing about sex. John Updike was shortlisted four times for one of Britain’s least coveted literary prizes, the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award, eventually scooping a lifetime achievement award.
You rose to the challenge admirably. The winners earn £25 each and the bonus fiver goes to Chris O’Carroll.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a gentleman in fashionably tailored trousers, the fabric cut tight across the musculature of his thighs, cannot readily dissemble his amorous inclinations when paying his address to a young lady who has aroused his interest. As the bedchamber door swung shut, Elizabeth noted the dexterity with which Darcy’s fingers undid a quick succession of unfamiliar fasteners in his male garments, thereby making further manifest his commitment to an agenda of congress. She shivered pleasantly as the tender skin beneath her gown anticipated the peregrinations of those strong, sure fingers. What he unveiled to her view was, she observed, both more and less than she had imagined it might be. The solid reality was more than the thing merely dreamt of, yet fancy had roamed to extremes no mortal could equal. Elizabeth’s breath quickened as she began to undo her own vesture.
Chris O’Carroll (Jane Austen)

‘Pluck the budded rose of my maidenhood, Bertie. Take me. I am yours.’
‘Right ho,’ I said.
Even to the casual listener this ‘Right-ho’ of mine must have sounded somewhat lacking in the appropriate vim and pep. I admit it. But the fact is a chap can’t simply march on to the tee and smite the ball straight down the fairway. He needs to settle into his stance, give the club head a waggle or two, adjust his grip.
‘Oh, Bertie, don’t be shy!’ I felt her hand slide down the silk blue-spotteds towards the below stairs area. Then she pounced, like a sea-eagle on a basking pilchard.
‘Ooh, you are a big boy!’ she cried.
‘I think you’ll find that’s my wrist,’ I returned coldly.
This begetting business clearly wasn’t the doddle it’s cracked up to be in the O.T.
W.J. Webster (P.G. Wodehouse)

Gresham Mortimer had taken it all too fastidiously, as he ruefully reflected he was wont to do, that the summons to the Contessa’s bedchamber signalled, again, that she had fallen prey to a recurrent indisposition, that being ‘out of sorts’ she felt unable to confront the inevitable dérangement — normally borne with exemplary fortitude — of rising to welcome visitors, yet he had not expected to find her so radically, indeed to a degree which bestowed on the expression its ultimate meaning, en déshabille. He was, in short, ‘taken aback’ by the vision now presenting itself to his innocent unpreparedness, which, though in outline familiar from his earnest odyssey among European galleries, he associated principally with the allegories of painting and sculpture; to face it ‘point blank’ was as devastating to his ingrained sense of propriety as the words she uttered with an unabashed urgency — ‘give it to me, big boy!’
Basil Ransome-Davies (Henry James)

I woke tolerably early, having made an ass of myself the previous evening, and realised that, in my haste to reach my pillow, I had selected the wrong room. The way this kind of recognition steals up is quite confounding. I pride myself on keeping a cool head, but on this occasion, I discovered that I had a companion, a pretty girl, who had evidently partaken of similar poison. We had each neglected to dress for sleep, and were, to use an old saw, as nature intended. We were also pressed against each other as tightly as a plug of tobacco in a pipe.
I fancied she might scream. I considered it myself. But it is surprising what comes over a couple who have never been properly introduced, and whose parts are in reasonable working order. I imagined my oar feathering the water, and sculled across. The tide was full.
Bill Greenwell (Jerome K. Jerome)

Sex everywhere. Sex in the air, the streets, the winding alleys, the river’s mouth. Sex in the footsteps and soft voices under his window. Sex here, now, in her eyes and smile. Sex inside the bedroom door, and the candle flame unlacing her shadow against the blind.
‘Miss Jarndyce ...?’ Oh the aching sweetness of her name, like good treacle. And now the shimmering, slithering, slipping-down of her silk chemise, with his hands — now what, exactly, were his hands doing in all this? This was new work and no mistake! There was the crackle of man’s work about them as they coaxed and teased and fretted and frisked and fitted her warm flesh into his fingers. Oh my! Nothing here for the dry-as-dust judges and jurors, shrivelling in their stalls. She was as billowy as a sail, filling in the breeze.
‘Stuffins is willin’,’ he croaked. ‘Going amidships.’
D.A. Prince (Charles Dickens)

‘The going will be slow — and fiendishly hard,’ said Oblib, glad of a bed for the night at the Inn of Erutpar. ‘Are you sure you are eager to come?’
‘More than eager,’ sighed Loingrid, Princess of Rodrom, whose garments, woven in silk by the Glodmyns, had long been discarded. ‘Are these to your liking?’
‘Mercy!’ cried Oblib, emboldened by Fladnag. ‘Never since the Twin Peaks of Dedred have I seen such beauty.’
‘Good, but beware of journeying south!’ warned Loingrid. ‘After you’ve roamed through the Plains of Abdom, paused at the Circle of Laven and trekked through the forested Mound of Vortican, nothing can save you from what lies within. There, where none but the boldest of Sniggabs dare penetrate, lies the prize. Will you, Oblib, be tempted to venture there?’
‘With Fladnag’s blessing,’ said Oblib, empowered by firm resolve and fired with fervour, ‘nothing can stop me!’
Alan Millard (J.R.R. Tolkien)
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Unread 08-05-2010, 09:37 AM
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FOsen FOsen is offline
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I had hopes, but they were squashed like a bug - congratulations on some hilarious entries, Bazza, Bill, and Chris [maybe we should start referring to you collectively as "the BBC" - you're becoming as ubiquitous].

Best,

Frank
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Unread 08-05-2010, 09:55 AM
Orwn Acra Orwn Acra is offline
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I had high hopes for this one, but it was not to be. I'm going to assume "eiffel-towered in Paris" was not suitable for print. Probably not true, but I can't handle the truth at the moment.
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