Handsheet for the erotic writer --- Call me by your name (2) --- updated, reposted

So, the movie Call Me by Your Name is out this week to rave reviews. Most of them regrettably fail to mention that it's based on the homonymous novel by André Aciman, a book that became something of a cult-hit in the literate gay community since its appearance in 2007. We got hold of the title while writing the first part of the GREEN EYES, and read it with thieving expectations: lifting a few ideas, maybe, or at least a few turns of phrase from Aciman's oeuvre. And in preparation for doing so, we created this Handsheet for the Erotic Writer with steamy quotes from the book. Enjoy... 

(Click to enlarge)

Much to our regret, we never managed to lift anything of substance, but...the idea of the Handsheet took hold. And so, in THIS IS HEAVEN, the award-winning author Greta Wetten Dass---while recounting last night's erotic encounter with the ravishing John ("Ben") Fletcher---suddenly holds a Handsheet for the Erotic Writer in her hand...

Here's a fragment from Chapter 14, titled accordingly "Handsheet for the Erotic Writer"---Greta recounting, John and Alex listening/interrupting:



“And there we go. While Jane holds onto his shoulder, yours truly tugs at Ben’s trouser legs until the jeans come off. There’s the minor issue of the underwear proper, which is dispatched by a forthcoming sister in one swift gesticulation. She then buries—don’t blush—her nose in the loosened pouch of the garment.

‘Aah,’ she affects with a knowing voice. She hands the cloth to me. For the first time in my life do I sniff willingly and voraciously the scent of male hidden treasures, a scent so unbuttoned and rustic, so intimate and strong. A touch of Marquis de Sade gets involved.”



“Really?” Alex asks. “Did you ever read de Sade?”
“I should have,” Greta replies.
“De Sade, you know, basically starts when they shit on you, or you shit on them.”
“Alex!” Greta says in not-quite-mock revulsion.
“I mean defecate,” Alex says.

“No touch of Marquis de Sade gets involved then, it’s just as well. Let me focus. You boys will have an idea what comes next.”

(We’re dwelling under the shade of the awning of the market stand, Greta sitting on one of the folding chairs, facing the field, Alex standing idle in his leather shorts, and me sitting on another chair half-facing Greta, so I’m aware of the doings behind her back—just so that you know.)

“Enfin, we concentrate our attention on the leading part in this—isn’t there an expression in German, ‘Lustspiel’?”

I don’t know how, but she suddenly holds a sheet of paper in her hand. It is titled Hand Sheet for the Erotic Writer—yet it doesn’t seem to provide the answer.

Alex flips his cell phone, swipes. “It’s German, yes,” he says. “Means comedy. A play with a happy ending.”

“Right. Happy ending, that’s what we achieved, although we paid a price for that, in particularly poor Ben did. Let’s hope he’ll recover soon. He will, I’m confident. His reputation will spread, a bright future beckons, the nation needs him. He’ll be the hero of my next book, so much is certain. He’ll start as a run-away slave in the mid nineteen hundreds and is taken under the wings of knowing women like Jane. He ascends to celebrity status, the White House gets involved—what was the name of Lincoln’s wife—the Tsarina sends a clipper from Saint Petersburg to pick him up, pirates intercept his voyage, then, enamored, treat him very well, all this in graphic detail, you can’t sell anything these days without a gay component…I don’t even have to invent anything, just rephrase it in dated language and have people dressed up like Gettysburg, and voilà.”

(Yes, we say.)

“You’re right,” she says, “let me concentrate. Jane, now comfortably installed on her knees next to Ben, lets her elegant fingers slide tentatively along his lustspiel—isn’t it charming, no word is safe in English—and lowers her head in anticipation of her role in, how do you say—okay, let’s cut to the chase—in anticipation of a vicious blow job. In mid-poise she changes her mind, however, and beckons me to join. Both girls undertake to cover Ben’s throbbing crown with passionate kisses, little kisses oh-soo-teasingly presaging the moment that our tongues get involved, licking, devouring, consummating Ben’s penile innocence, including his precum—I don’t think Ben was still a virgin, by the way, he’s simply too handsome, nobody with his looks can make it past the age of fourteen without getting laid—let’s stick to the illusion. Virgins always sell. Meanwhile, more precum is oozing off the black delight of his lust-thing.

“The object of sisterly cravings has, in the meantime, not remained ignorant of our efforts. He begins to moan softly. Desire spreads across his abdomen as his ripped body seems to tense up. Whether he’s aware of it or not, he won’t last much longer. Jane and I share a regard.

“The pursuit of love-making, gentlemen, has a practical component. Despite the best efforts of my pen-colleagues, a male person can have only so many ejaculations during a limited period of time. We would have Ben three, at most four times during the night. Letting him come at that moment would have meant that a quarter of his lust had already been consumed while we weren’t quite undressed.”

(Stay tuned)