Ingela Bohm's Blog, page 46

Speak well or shut up

If you haven’t already figured it out, I question everything – especially things I’m guilty of myself. With that said, let’s get on with today’s gripe.

Today, someone at work complained about lecturers with ‘tics’, and everyone in the room agreed that it’s a good thing to work on your body language when you’re a public speaker.

Except me.

*sigh*

I mean, I get that some things can be distracting when you’re listening to a talk: gestures, sounds, laughter, etc. But to iron those idiosynchracies out completely seems so… inhuman, somehow. Like the leash is choking-level tight.

There’s so much talk about accepting differences and being inclusive, but when it comes down to it, how tolerant are we? How do our fancy words fare when confronted with real life, and the supreme western dictate of Control?

Because make no mistake, this is about control. Censoring our bodies to avoid revealing our feelings, our failings. All our energy poured into concealing, holding back, keeping down. It’s almost as if, when we speak to a group, we’re not allowed to be people at all, but should comport ourselves with all the chilly poise of a robot.

It bothers me. Yes, I too can be distracted by repetitive gestures and compulsive sighs, and I’m certainly not above being more impressed/convinced by a charismatic, confident, controlled lecturer. But as a definition of ‘good enough’, that’s really narrow.

So people can take courses to become better speakers. Those with high voices are told to lower them, and those with a hunched posture are told to straighten up. All of us should conform to the same norm, and if we don’t, we only have ourselves to blame when we’re not taken seriously.

Again, I understand why the ideal exists, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. Because, what? Anyone with a minor ‘defect’ need not apply?

Yes, it can be difficult to accept people and all their quirks. Christ, I’m the poster girl for hangups! Just… You know. Think twice before you reproduce the view that only one type of person is acceptable on a stage, and the rest of us should change to be more like them.

A good little girl at Wigmore Hall

A big part of my identity has to do with being quiet. Not just because God forbid I reveal something that can be used against me in a court of law, but because I was actually taught to shut up. I haven’t thought about it before, but now it hits me: my silence was rewarded with a crapload of approval. Not only from my father, but from strangers. I was the too-young girl at classical concerts, the one people glanced at as their hearts sank and they thought, “Oh no, there goes tonight’s Bartók.”

Only that wasn’t what happened.

And so it was that before I even knew English, I understood when the ladies bent to pat me on the head afterwards and smiled, “What a good little girl, to sit so still.” Even at that church where they used to (still do?) record concerts for BBC radio, and the lady in charge made me and my father sit close to the door so she could chuck us out if I made the tiniest sound. And next year, when we came back, and she recognized me, and we didn’t have to sit by the door anymore.

I was proud. For being quiet to the point of erasing myself. It sounds like I was born in another century, but there it is.

Nowadays, you’re not meant to be quiet. Silence isn’t golden, it’s suspicious. And boring. But I can still be a non-coughing, barely breathing statue when I want to, and maybe one day it’ll prove to be an absolutely essential super power.

I live in hope.

Oh my God, I did it

Why is it that you can be afraid of doing things you know you’re not crap at? How can the prospect of, say, speaking to a roomful of people – which you’ve done for years – be so daunting that for two nights, you don’t really sleep?

I know I can trust myself. Nowadays, my throat doesn’t even go dry. I can make people laugh, and at least some of them enjoy the talk. I know that.

And yet.

Sometimes I think it’s simply the knowledge that I’ll have to be alert for an hour or so. That I won’t be able to zone out like I usually do. That I can’t take a back seat – because I’m the one holding the show.

Or is it that I’m ashamed of the content of the talk? That I’m uncomfortable pretending to be The Authority on stuff that I have less of a grasp on that the people I’m speaking to? There’s a special kind of dread reserved for when you have to convince/entertain people who actually work with what you’re just researching. Because some of them will inevitably be thinking, “Oh, go back to university, you desk rat! You have no idea what reality’s like.” It’s that mixture of being higher up in the hierarchy but lower on the common-sense-o-meter. Which, with my background, I may be a bit over-sensitive to.

But now it’s done, and at least one person liked it. Even I am not so self-loathing that I can’t see genuine enthusiasm when it glitters at me like that.[image error]

Another deleted scene (Just Playing)

More cut smut, snipped from post-gig dressing room hanky-panky.

***

Without losing his hold on Michael, Jamie reached out to lock the door.

Michael gasped. “Here?”

“Can’t wait.” Jamie kissed down his throat, and Michael’s hair caught on his damp lips.

Michael laughed. “Mm… so, the shower?” He extricated himself from Jamie’s arms and pulled off his shirt. Behind him, the shower room lay gleaming in blue moonlight from a window high up on the wall. Framed by that magical glow, he undid the button on his jeans while walking backwards, smiling, into the hazy moonbeam. The light caught his hair, sparkled coldly in those dark tresses, and Jamie could do nothing but follow, eyes riveted on the vision before him. Michael pushed his jeans down past his hips, revealing the absence of underwear. A wreath of dark curls girdled a beautiful pale stalk like the blue-black petals of some exotic and dangerous flower.

Jamie’s hands mirrored the motions of his friend, shedding his clothes without a second thought. When Michael turned on the shower, they were both naked and shining like marble statues. The flowing water caught the moonlight, individual droplets glittering like falling crystals before landing on over-sensitive skin and sliding down chests and thighs. They went into each other’s embrace, wet arms sliding around slick waists, aching cocks seeking each other’s warmth in the downpour.

Their tongues met, caressed and slipped, lips colliding wetly. Jamie groaned into Michael’s mouth and reached behind him, sliding his hand down the small of his back to the valley beneath. Michael’s head fell back with a sigh, exposing his throat to Jamie’s lips and teeth. Nipping gently at all that bluish skin, his fingers glided between Michael’s cheeks and wrung ecstatic whimpers from vocal cords perfectly in tune with the shimmering silver light.

“Soap… soap…” Michael breathed raggedly. Jamie reached out for the dispenser and squeezed a generous amount into his palm before returning to Michael’s ass. Slippery and over-eager, he easily pushed inside. “Oh my fucking God…!”

He still wasn’t used to it, still couldn’t really believe what was happening. Even though they’d spent the remaining days of their time off in various states of undress, thoroughly soiling Kate’s sheets and celebrating their last night of freedom with a trip to the Laundromat, Michael could still knock the breath right out of him. Enflamed, Jamie pushed further inside, drew out and repeated the motion, unheedful of the dizziness which threatened to bring him to his knees. The sounds coming from Michael’s mouth were so sweet and exhilarating, there was no way he could even think about stopping. If the fire alarm should go off now, he’d still stay to finish the job and maybe die in the flames with his beloved.

“I want you!” Michael turned in his embrace, seeking the wall with unsteady hands and offering himself to Jamie’s straining cock, trailing its longing moisture over his cheeks. “Come inside me, please…”

Breathing shallowly, Jamie gripped himself with a shaking hand and almost failed to guide himself right. When the soap-slick skin of Michael’s opening gave way and welcomed him in, he almost lost his balance and had to lean onto his back, gasping for air. Michael mewled brokenly and his muscles drew tight around Jamie, choking him as effectively as if his hands were around his throat. The heat was incredible, and the nearness… He’d never been this close to another human being. They were melding, merging. It was some sort of perfect alchemy, made possible by the otherworldly glow from the full moon, by the bass line of Jerusalem still pounding through their electrified bodies.

Barely aware of the hot water running down his back, Jamie thrust deeper and deeper into the body of the man he had been destined to love all of his life. And as he moved inside him, the moment stretched and grew, sending tendrils backwards in time, changing their history, transforming everything into one long love affair. This moment made it true: they had always been lovers. As he stood here, barely holding himself up on weak and trembling legs, new memories were formed, made up for lost time. Suddenly, they had had each other in other dressing rooms, in other showers – on equipment, in hotel beds, in the leaf piles of a thousand sparkling autumns. He had always loved him this way. They had always played towards this mind-shattering crescendo.

Groaning with the disorientation of his approaching orgasm, he grabbed Michael’s hair and pushed it into his face, smelling it, feeling the damp softness of it while his cock quivered in almost panicked expectation inside the hot embrace of Michael’s ass. This climax might just kill him, but he didn’t care. He would die a thousand deaths just to hear those musical moans grow into a keening sound that never failed to steal his heart. Unstoppable, the finale ripped through him like his own irreverent solo in Mortal Love, tearing loose every nerve, every vein in his body, leaving him with nothing but the naked, pulsing weakness that was his love for Michael.

Pax deleted scene (Just Playing)

Okay, this is seriously NSFW. And seriously over the top. And seriously unedited, and cut from the book for a reason, and so on and so forth.

Enjoy.

***

Michael

Packing the bus had never seemed to take this long. I should be able to keep my hands off him for a few hours, Michael told himself, but his body was not impressed. It yearned and burned, even though he’d just come, and nothing could make it stop.

When everything was finally in order, and Cal finally seemed to have fallen asleep in his sleeping compartment, Michael and Jamie crawled into the unbelievably cramped space of Michael’s bottom bunk. Michael drew the blanket up over them both and then hesitated with his hand hovering over Jamie’s naked skin, on the cusp of that illicit touch. Jamie made up his mind for him, drew him close. Chest to chest, crotch to crotch, heat flared up between them. “Just as long as we’re really quiet, right?”

“Yeah…” Michael slid his hand over the burning skin of Jamie’s back. Moaning at the pure pleasure that heat awakened in his fingers, he sought Jamie’s lips with his mouth. Jamie hooked a leg around Michael’s, pulling it between his own. He was breathing fast already, panting into his mouth, one step away from a moan. Michael’s cock immediately rose in his boxers, humming like a tuning fork and seeking out the mirroring need between Jamie’s thighs. A hand glided up his leg and work its way inside the cotton, and as expert fingers wrapped around Michael’s inflamed cock, Michael’s mouth fell open even as an outbreath snagged on his vocal cords. As if to stifle his moan, Jamie covered his mouth and took those sounds into himself before they hit the air. So sweetly gagged, Michael allowed himself to let go a little, give voice to the insanely sweet tremors that were being pulled out of his very bones.

Jamie pulled away and grinned through the rumbling dusk. “Too sore, or can I use my fingers?”

Instead of replying, Michael grabbed his hand and guided it down to his ass. Jamie chuckled and gently stroked the sensitive skin. “But, you know… is there anything I can do to… ease the way?”

Michael writhed against him, trying to urge him on. “You’re already an expert, I think.”

Jamie looked at him sharply, hearing the unspoken as clearly as the rest. “But…?”

Michael bit his lip, grateful for the near-darkness. “‘But’ nothing!”

“I know you, Mike. Don’t lie to me.”

Michael let out a frustrated groan. “You seriously think I’m going to blurt out something which will send you screaming for the hills just when I’ve got you where I wanted you?”

Jamie laughed, and the happy sound was like the trilling of summer birds. “You can’t scare me. I’ve seen the worst.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Yes I have.”

Michael clenched his teeth. There was no way Jamie was going to stop pestering him. He sighed. “You’ll have to ‘burn after reading’.”

“Sure. Just tell me. I want to make you feel good.”

Michael hesitated, held his breath. Jamie said nothing, tuned in to his internal strife as if he could read the transcript. He just waited, let Michael summon his courage.

“You could use your mouth.”

“I’ve already done that.”

“Well…” Michael paused, stomach bottoming out. “There’s more than one way to do that.”

“Oh?” Jamie encouraged, all innocent curiosity.

Michael blushed, feeling hopelessly depraved, beyond all redemption. Did he really have to spell it out? “I think… perhaps… it would feel good if you…” He pulled himself closer to Jamie, hid his face in his neck, sought shelter in the arms of the very person he was trying to hide from.

“Just say it, Mike,” Jamie murmured, stroking his back.

“If you hate the idea, you must forget I ever said anything!”

“Stop stalling. Tell me.”

Michael drew a deep breath. “Could you… use your… tongue… on me?”

“I already said I–” Jamie broke off, his body tensed in understanding. “Michael…?”

“Forget it!” Michael whined into the pillow. “It’s gross, I know.”

Jamie drew away and took hold of Michael’s chin, forced him to meet his eyes. “You… are not gross. And anything I do to you – that can’t be gross either. Okay? I’d be honoured to try it.”

Michael burst into uncontrollable giggles. “Honoured? Jamie, you’re insane. Let’s just forget it.”

“Not after I had to crowbar you for ten minutes just to get you to say it. You’re getting the tongue treatment, mister, and no buts!”

The double meaning of the final word hit them both at the same time and they collapsed in helpless laughter. “God…” Michael groaned and covered his face. “This relationship will do nothing for my attempts to appear mature!”

Jamie shrugged. “We’re fucking rock stars. We do what we want.”

Michael laughed at that. “And that includes…?” he fished.

Jamie nodded gravely. “That includes rim jobs.”

“Jesus!” Michael burrowed his burning face into the sheets.

“No extra cost,” Jamie purred close to his ear and then crawled down his body, kissing the whole way down. Michael tried to protest, but there was nothing to say. He had asked for it. And he did want it. And…

His lungs collapsed as he felt Jamie’s lips touch the bare skin beneath his waistband. Pulling at the fabric, he moved further down, tongue flicking out to tease him, to trail along the cleft. This is insane, this is insane, Michael kept telling himself, but when he felt Jamie gently part his cheeks, his ability to soliloquize and feel at the same time ended abruptly. Holding his breath in disbelief, he flinched to feel Jamie’s tongue lightly touch the super-sensitive skin surrounding his opening. Electric currents darted from the place of contact to all parts of his body, and he heard himself moan loudly. He could feel Jamie smile against his cheeks. “You like it?”

Michael could do nothing but breathe heavily in reply, and when Jamie’s tongue once again touched him, he shuddered violently. Encouraged, Jamie started licking rhythmically. Michael almost sobbed with pleasure, crying out into the pillow as Jamie pushed at the yielding muscle with a pointed tongue, teasing and teasing and teasing until Michael couldn’t bear the wet, soft touches any more.

“Please, please, please,” he breathed desperately, “I want you so much!”

“But how… I don’t think we can, you know, do it. Not here, not with Cal…”

But Michael interrupted him. “Get on your knees.”

“Wh…”

“Kneel above my head.”

“I, um, don’t think…” Jamie’s eyes flitted up to the bunk above, gauging the distance. “Yeah, I–”

“Come on.” Michael rolled onto his back and pushed his boxers past his hips. Jamie sat up, hunched to fit into the small space, and positioned himself with his knees on either side of Michael’s head. His damp cock hung in Michael’s face, trailed across his cheek as he sought the right angle for entry. Michael caught it between his lips, eliciting a groan. “Oh my God, that feels good…” Jamie balanced himself on his elbows and opened his mouth for Michael’s cock. A muffled ‘mmm’ sound shuddered through it and he felt as if gravity had stopped working. Pushing into Jamie’s mouth, he simultaneously swallowed him down, feeling droplets of Jamie’s saliva run down his shaft and into the cave beneath. It tickled like hell, and he wished Jamie would slide a finger down there. Sucking upwards, he moved a hand up to cup and caress Jamie’s balls. His fingers were all slippery, and when the bus lurched, they slid back and buried themselves between Jamie’s cheeks.

He felt the violent jolt tear through Jamie’s body. Oh fuck, what did I do now…?

 

Jamie

“Schowwy,” Michael tried to apologize with his mouth full, but Jamie was staring at the sheets between Michael’s legs, lost in the impossibility of that… that… sensation. He had known, of course. He’d done it to himself. But Michael’s fingers… He succumbed to a brief bout of dizziness. It was so forbidden.

“Could you… could you do it again?” he forced the words out, shame battling desire and losing the fight fast.

“What? Touch your… here?” Michael ghosted over the backs of his thighs, and Jamie could only moan in answer. “Sure…” He wetted his fingers and let them glide up behind Jamie’s balls and into the crevice again, and Jamie held his breath and rested his head on Michael’s thighs, close to fainting. He wanted more. He wanted it rougher. Without even being aware of it, he spread his legs as far apart as they could go in the small space. When Michael started to gently push at the shyly shrinking muscle, his voice came in moist and hoarse starts that bore no resemblance to his normal voice. It was a sound of pure desire, and it seemed to turn Michael on. He pushed deeper inside and matched his thrusts with forceful sucking motions all along Jamie’s cock, reminding him to resume his own ministrations.

Pushing back to meet Michael’s accelerating fingering, he licked up and down the sweet-tasting organ which strained for his tongue like a living creature. He could feel the build-up in that humming muscle as if it were his own body, and then Michael’s moans suddenly rose in pitch and his hips jerked and thrust into his mouth, spurts of warm quicksilver flooding him. Still invaded from behind by searching, greedy fingers and sucked from root to tip by Michael’s strong lips, he was soon dissolving into his own sweet ecstasy which had him flailing to anchor himself in the narrow bunk. “Michael… Michael… God!”

Even when he thought he was done, there were still new waves to crest, surges of feeling that carried him high and plunged him down again, and all through the shuddering, there was the relentless circular motion of Michael’s fingers, teasing out dormant blinding sparks from depths even Jamie himself had never braved. “Michael,” he whined again, fear and dizziness and helpless bloody love tornadoing through his body. “I love you… fuck… I love you!” The words were generic, but he meant them, body and soul, bone and blood.

When he had stopped coming, he slumped like a dead man over Michael’s body, just battling to keep breathing. His ass tingled and his softening cock twitched as Michael drew his fingers out, and then there was the sound of low chuckling. “Don’t you dare,” he muttered wearily.

“Are you going to sleep on top of me?” Michael asked, feigning irritation, and Jamie groaningly changed positions, collapsing instead the right way up, with his nose in Michael’s hair. Michael kissed his forehead and wiped them both with a discarded t-shirt. Then he heaved a deep, contented sigh. “Goodnight then, darling.”

Jamie snorted, and then he fell asleep.

Would I give my book five stars?

HA HA HA.

No.

Look, five stars… for me, that’s just not attainable. That’s Ender’s Game good. That’s ‘this came to us from a higher being, and every single word in it is perfection’ good. It’s ‘If you dare to criticize it, I will end you’.

And my books ain’t that.

I’ve seen some authors argue that if you’re not prepared to give your own book five stars, why are you publishing it? That not giving yourself the highest possible praise is somehow equal to offering a subpar product. Which is kind of… categorical. And weird.

Maybe I’m scarred by the Swedish grading system, which was based on the numbers 1-5 at the time I finished high school. It was supposed to follow a curve, where most people got a 3, fewer got 2’s and 4’s, and 1 and 5 were quite rare. It makes sense to me that most things are ‘quite good’ but no more. That only a select few will be astounding.

Or maybe I’m jaded and hard to please, and everyone else enjoys life much more than I do. Well, no matter. I still don’t see how being over the moon about your own book is a prerequisite for letting anyone else read it.

Because things change.

Throughout life, we learn, and we get better. At any given time, what I publish is the best I can do, but that level of proficiency changes for every story I finish and get feedback on. If revising Just Playing teaches me one thing, it’s that I’ve actually become a better writer since I wrote it.

But I still don’t write five star books.

So I can’t wait to publish until the book is perfect, because that will never happen. I have some small talent, but I will never reach the dizzying heights of my role models. And I will never be as good today as I will be tomorrow. (Well, hopefully – unless I start regressing.)

Anyway, it’s all so subjective. What I cringe at now in Just Playing, someone else might love – and vice versa. Even if I felt like five-starring my own crazy ramblings, that would be no guarantee that anyone else would like it. Of course, I do make an effort, and I do try to make every book the best I can – but that’s just it: the best I can. There will always be skills that are beyond my grasp. I will always reach for the stars and stumble over the threshold. But I can do the most with what I’ve got and be content with that. It doesn’t all have to be ‘the best since so and so’.

Besides, it’s a bit like cooking. When you’ve spent an hour by the stove, your nose is numb from all the smells, so you don’t appreciate the finished meal as much as your guests do. Likewise, when you’ve recorded a song or painted a picture, you know about all the mistakes and the cut and paste fakery. You can’t enjoy it the same way an outsider can.

So screw those five stars. If something I wrote makes you feel something, that makes me happy. If it doesn’t, that’s fine. At least I enjoyed making it – and if I want to be blinded by excellence, I’ll find it in someone else’s writing.

I won’t five-star it, though.

Truths and opinions

Maybe I’m the only one in the world with this problem, but I tend to view everything people say as an Unassailable Truth. For example, just the other day, some random journalist wrote that the Kaiser Chiefs song I Predict A Riot was “a silly pop song”, and instead of just disagreeing and moving on, I stopped, confused and dismayed, and started debating this opinion in my head and comparing it with my experience, even starting to DOUBT my own experience that it was not, in fact, a silly pop song.

Even though it was just one guy’s opinion, I let it bug me to the point of still mulling on it four days later. Because I can’t discard it as simply an opinion I disagree with. For me, it has the potential of being the objective truth (which is especially ridiculous, since I don’t really believe in truth).

Of course, since people say wildly different things, this makes for an interesting ride. It can’t all be true, can it? But every time someone voices an opinion, I take it too seriously. If it clashes with mine, I seriously question my own opinion. Every. Single. Time.

Feel free to put a bid on my brain. I’m sick of it.

The worst thing is that when I see memes on Facebook or the like, proclaiming opinions as truth, I tend to take it to heart. For example, the ones that hold caring in higher esteem than intelligence. That tell the reader it’s better to be kind than to be smart. It’s just an opinion, and yet I let it get to me to the point of abandoning Facebook altogether – because I don’t want that stuff messing with my brain. Every time, I’ll believe it. Every time, I’ll let it bring me down, because I’m not, in fact, more kind than I’m smart. I’m kind by omission, but that’s not the same thing.

So, am I the only person in the world with this kind of sponge-brain that accepts everything at face value? Am I the only one to doubt myself as soon as someone else opens their mouth?

At least I can counter with my own truth on my own blog. So here goes: I Predict A Riot is a wonder of a song, with perfect use of slang and dialect, original rhymes, percussive lyrics, the right kind of testosterone, and just the right amount of disdain/despair. The never-ending melody of the verse merges effortlessly into the Suede-like bridge, and the unexpected chorus is like a football chant. It’s punk, but it’s beautiful.

And that’s the truth.

Another not-review

I don’t want to star-review things I love, because I almost never five-star, and I don’t want to drag down the average, so… this is my usual compromise.

So I’m re-reading the Spires series by Alexis Hall, and something hit me (as it tends to do, and I tend to want to proclaim it to, if not the world, then at least my tiny corner of it). The main characters sort of all have the same problem, and they all have the same solution. Sort of. And this is my interpretation, okay? Coloured by who I am and what I want reflected in my stories.

They’re a little too much in their heads. A little too sensitive. And they find someone who draws them out and grounds them.

Now, I don’t think ‘thinking too much’ or ‘being too sensitive’ is a bad thing in itself. But it can be bloody exhausting, and finding a significant other who can tease you away from that beckoning abyss is a gift. It happened to me, so I guess it’s no mystery why I adore these books. Why I view them as TRUE romance. To me, they’re about people who tend to over-complicate, and who meet someone who simplifies. A life-saver in romantic form.

Or friend form. As I read them now, I actually see the quest for a friend in there, too. Especially this one. How you don’t want to presume, to push in where you’re not wanted, and yet you cling to tatters of understanding, and wisps of connection, like they’re life buoys. Which they are. But most of them drift away before you can lean on them.

But one of them didn’t drift away. I had to go hug my husband in the middle of Waiting For The Flood, because it reminded me how precious he is. And that’s the kind of book that makes a difference.

The unbearable heaviness of being

What is it about grief/fear/dread that is literally heavy to bear? Like you’re actually carrying an extra load, weighing you down like wet laundry.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s simply uncried tears – that you stock up on water, and if you don’t let it out, it’s physically demanding to carry it around. It’s not your imagination, it’s a biological thing. It sloshes around in there, waiting to build up enough to spill over, whether you’re prepared or not.

Or is it that you’re weaker than usual, and your body just feels heavier because of that? Like walking around on Jupiter (yes, I’ve been there), with the gravity so strong that even the simplest movement becomes a chore.

Whatever it is, it feels physical. Psychosomatic? Perhaps. But what does it matter, when the feeling resides in your body anyway?

It matters to the poet, but the poet can make things up, so the poet will. And now I will go read said poet instead of trying to emulate his style.

I love weaklings

Is this clickbait? Not really. ‘Weakling’ may look like a negative word, meant to excite confusion in a title like the one above, but for me, it isn’t.

I’ve always known this, I guess, but it really hit me last night, as I was watching a kind of joke interview with a celebrity (who shall remain anonymous). In it, there was this constant threat of playful attack from the woman (as a part of the interview), and the man’s body language was just a teensy bit submissive. Hard to explain, but when he thought an attack was coming, he shied away in this completely adorable way, and I had to rewatch those parts again and again because…

Because…

I’m a lost cause?

Or because I’m a perfectly normal variation in the way people relate to each other, only I appear like an anomaly in a world where I’m expected to like my men beefy and loud.

And it all kind of snaps into place – why I don’t feel at home browsing a genre where every other cover features a sixpack. Why I cringe at anything alpha-related. Why any quote containing the word ‘growl’ makes me steer well clear. I’m sorry – to each their own – but I really don’t go for that. At all. Dominant men might as well be translucent to me.

I want the long lashes, the angst, the giggles, the raised shoulder, the slightly heart-wrenching way some guys never get to finish a sentence because someone else is more brash and takes up more space. Not because I want them to be trampled on, just… I don’t know. Maybe it’s an identification thing: that I appreciate men who are like me. Or maybe I simply prefer interacting with people who both give and take.

So why am I writing a blog post about this? As usual, I have no idea. Maybe it just needs to be said, to add one more dissenting voice that negates the assumption that all women want the same thing, and that all men should be a particular way.

And even as I write it, I think back to a period in my life when I spent all my time with musicians. It was wonderful. The men were less ‘masculine’ and the women were less ‘feminine’ that regular people, and it was such a perfect, relaxing world. Okay, I’m gilding the memory a little bit, who wouldn’t? But in a general way, it’s true. I did prefer those guys to everyone else.

Maybe it’s the creativity that brings out the anima/animus in people, or maybe it’s a fluke. In any case, it’s no accident that I’ve written four books about musicians. They fascinate me, and I wish I was like them. I will always stand with my nose pressed to the glass, gazing in at the violinists and guitarists, the drummers and pianists. They just seem like much more whole people. Is that crazy?

Of course, there are loads of exceptions, but the basic belief remains, and I’m not abandoning the fantasy. And after watching that heart-warming interview last night, I just might be tempted to start plotting the fifth Pax book.

Might.