Carrie's Story is regarded as one of the finest erotic novels ever written—smart, devastatingly sexy, and, at times, shocking. In this new era of "BDSM romance," à la Fifty Shades of Grey, the whips and cuffs are out of the closet and "château porn" has given way to mommy porn. Carrie's Story remains at the head of the class. Imagine The Story of O starring a Berkeley Ph.D. in comparative literature who moonlights as a bike messenger, has a penchant for irony, and loves self-analysis as much as anal pleasures. Set in both San Francisco and the more château-friendly Napa Valley, Weatherfield's deliciously decadent novel takes you on a sexually-explicit journey into a netherworld of slave auctions, training regimes, and enticing "ponies" (people) preening for dressage competitions. Desire runs rampant in this story of uncompromising mastery and irrevocable submission.
The guard led me to the platform, and I noticed for the first time that there was another nasty wrinkle to the system. They didn’t chain you down or anything. What you did was climb onto the platform and back up—until your asshole was impaled on the dildo mounted on the wall. Thoughtfully, the dildos were mounted at different heights; the guard seemed to have a sense of which was my height—well, I guess they’d get good pretty fast at figuring that one out. It was big—big, cold, smooth, and hard—and, mercifully, well greased. I winced as I backed onto it and was rewarded by a few hoots and giggles, as well as one or two promises that I’d be accommodating a lot more than that before the evening was over. Somebody tossed a little wad of paper at me, which hit my face, then, a banana peel, which kind of bounced off my shoulder. I could feel myself blush, and I bowed my head, but the guard raised my chin with the handle of his whip. The little bells hanging from my aching breasts jingled as I arched my back to help me assume the correct position. I looked at the faces at the tables, banal, jocular, cheerful, and I really did feel punished. Abased. This was different from anything I’d experienced before. I remembered Jonathan’s little speech a million years ago, the one about my jagged little edge of critical intelligence— oh please, gimme a break! These people could care less about my critical edge, about the subtleties of my consciousness, the fine balance between objectification and narrative subjectivity. I felt bereft. I didn’t like to look. I had to keep my head up, but as much as I could, I lowered my eyelids. I could see those damned little bells, shiny under the fluorescent lights and slightly blurred, beneath my slow to obey/talked out of turn placard. I put everything I had into trying not to cry.
A few more slaves were led in, I could see out of the corner of my eye. But I didn’t need to see it when Willfully Disobedient made his entrance—I could tell he was here by the excited murmur in the crowd, the jokes and catcalls, and the little missiles that started flying at him even before he got to the platform. He was the Main Event tonight, baked Alaska or cherries jubilee for dessert, no doubt about that. I forgot about my fears a little and raised my eyelids to watch.
They got him backed up on the stage and impaled, the security guard taking advantage of his own fifteen minutes of fame by slapping him hard in the face a few times and pulling and twisting at the bells on his nipples (I noticed suddenly that there was also one hanging from his scrotum). The crowd seemed to like the guard’s little show just fine, except that they would have liked to see the boy exhibit less self-control. (Secretly, frighteningly, so would I have, I realized.) Still, even I’d been able to control myself thus far, so I guess they weren’t surprised that he’d done so as well. The evening was young yet.
But they were already starting to quarrel among themselves. I mean, it was obvious to me, as well as to them of course, that not all fifty people in the room were going to get a crack at the Main Event that evening. Some of them were going to have to be satisfied with the rest of us. I didn’t know whether this was good or bad news for me.
In retrospect, I’m impressed at how well they worked it out—how cheerfully, fairly, and quickly. Of course, this was one of those countries where everybody gets more than a month of paid vacation every year and cradle-to-grave medical care, and they can’t change computer monitors without the union’s okay about the long-term health implications. Add to it an employee benefit like the one I was participating in—like the one I was—and why shouldn’t they be decent and humane? To each other, that was.
So, as far as I could follow, the rules they improvised were: Willfully Disobedient would be fucked by two teams of ten (it would have to be men, obviously, and I could see that the women were not pleased by this, but biology is destiny sometimes, even under social democracy). They’d line up on either end of him, and the idea was to compete for which team took the longest to get finished coming in him. Bets were taken, though I couldn’t figure out what the prizes would be. They hustled us off the platform and dragged it to the center of the room so that everybody could see. The asshole team grabbed a big tin of some kind of EuroCrisco that somebody had brought out from the kitchen.
The rest of us were really just bit players. They attached leashes to the rings in our collars so that they could drag us on hands and knees around the crowd (they positioned us at different points). We were popcorn at the movies, mostly, for those watching the entertainment. I was vastly relieved and, somewhere deep inside, just a little insulted. Go figure.
Anyway, I was pushed down to the linoleum floor and my leash given to a hefty woman sitting near the platform. She raised her skirt and pushed my head into her crotch, where I began to lick and suck, feeling the trembling of her big belly and thighs, and hearing the shouts and laughs from the crowd.
After a while, she jerked the leash and slapped my ass, hard, and I crawled away from her, to the next hand, this one a man, who turned me around and got down behind me to fuck me up the ass. I was glad, at least, that this allowed me to see what was happening up on the platform. About what you’d expect, I guess. Willful was on his hands and knees sucking some big guy’s cock, while the guy, who was dressed like a cook, grasped his pony tail to control the movement of his head. It was hard for me to see, but I had the idea that Willful wasn’t just a passive mouth being manipulated, but was actually putting some action behind it. Meanwhile, the guy at his asshole side, maybe an electrician or something, had just come, to cheers from the audience, and was staggering away, while his replacement began cheerily drilling away, occasioning more cheers and calls of encouragement.
This seemed to encourage the guy drilling into me. I heard myself calling out in pain and was rewarded by some hard slaps against my breasts. Finally, though, he was done, pulling himself back into his seat and handing my leash to the next person, who hauled me over her knee and started spanking me (the crowd had started up rhythmic clapping, to accompany the next mouth guy’s orgasm). And so it went, my simply following the jerks at the leash, relaxing into it as hands pushed or lifted me where they wanted me to go, breathing as well as I could, trying to stay as open as I could wherever I could. My knees were aching from crawling around the sticky floor, my face was sticky with come and tears, and the rest of me was a sticky, sweaty mess as well.
I was under another woman’s skirts when the contest was finally over, and a huge cheer rose from the crowd, accompanied by groans and boos, I guess from those who’d bet on the losers. So I didn’t get to see who won. Not that I cared. The woman grasped my head firmly, signaling that I was to finish what I was doing, and I did, until I heard her moans, and she dropped her hands entirely. A security guard picked up my leash and pulled me to my feet. I got to see Willful being pulled to his feet as well; I guess he’d fallen flat on the stage from exhaustion. The crowd shouted their disapproval at this, and then laughed as they saw how weak he was in the knees. Two big men lifted him to his feet, and then they hustled him around the cafeteria so everybody could at least get a pinch or poke at him. But he wasn’t crying. He seemed, from what I could see, interested in what was happening, bleary-eyed and mostly exhausted, but still amazingly alert.
At last, the party was breaking up. As a security guard grabbed my shoulders and turned me toward the exit door, I noticed the man in the dark glasses again, standing against a wall with his arms folded, watching everything, it seemed like. At least it seemed like he was watching me. Maybe he’s head of security or something, I thought idly, as I prepared to make my way down the corridors and back to my room. Leaving the cafeteria, I could hear a few shouts and guffaws behind me—I guessed they were still tormenting that tall, beautiful boy. And I never did find out what you had to do to be counted as willfully disobedient in that place.
Review:
How do you know you are reading one of the most influential books in the erotica genre? When it captures your attention so much you end up thinking about it even when you aren't reading it.
Carrie's Story is a book I had heard about for several years. I hadn't picked it up yet, but when this blog tour became a reality, I knew it was time. As I sat down with the book and became immersed in the story, I found myself absorbed in the world that author Molly Weatherfield had created. Meeting Carrie and following her through her awakening into the wide world of BDSM and many of its facets was positively enthralling.
When I began the book, I did not expect to be as enraptured by Carrie's character as I was. Her relationship with Jonathan and her utter surrender to the aspects of her new life left me wanting more. Page after page I read, hungry and hooked on every word. The subtle humiliations, the objectification, pony play, the training grounds and finally the auction were singularly captivating.
Laura Antoniou's Marketplace books affected me much in the same way. The rigid structure of the system that Carrie finds herself in is so much bigger than what she experiences as Jonathan's slave. It is this gradual process that indoctrinates the reader as well as Carrie into this new world that can be as painful and terrifying as it can be beautiful and pleasurable.
On the very last page, I wondered why in the world had I waited this long to read this masterpiece. It was provocative, filled with sexual adventures that form much of the basis for BDSM literature as we know it today. The level of feeling that we experience as readers as we grow with Carrie is astounding. I felt like I was graduating with her and putting my own items into the safety deposit box, ready to step off the next cliff. This book was indeed a literary feat, even without the sexuality that ratcheted it to a level that I have rarely seen in BDSM novels. I only hope that Ms. Weatherfield's work will in some way inspire the same depth of character in my own work. Even now as I reach for the second book in Carrie's adventure, I am anxious to see what new sensations await.
If you want an S/M novel that stays with you when you turn out the lights, then give Carrie's Story a read. Your fantasies will never be the same again.
5/5
An Interview with Molly:
1. When you first started writing, did you know you would be writing erotica?
I wrote non-fiction, mostly reviews, for years, and never thought I had it in me to write fiction. It was the power of my erotic fantasy life that led me to erotic writing, and nobody was more surprised than I was2. What about BDSM most appeals to you as a writer?
It's all about pacing and interaction, isn't it? Not to speak of the oh-no-I-can't-believe-what's-going-to-happen-next factor.3. Chocolate cake or angel food?
Both4. Cheeseburgers or sushi?
Sushi5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?
Very much a pantser, but I do know where I want to end up6. What was the hardest scene you ever had to write?
The most technically complex one happens in Safe Word: dinner for 8 at Kate's place. It was my first orgy and I wanted everybody to have a good time. I think it worked. I had a good time anyway.7. If you could pick anywhere to go on vacation, where would you go?
In the real world, I'd go to Istanbul. In the world of fantasy, to Kate's place in Napa, or Mr. Constant's island in the Mediterranean.8. What advice would you give new erotica writers?
An indirect quote from Anne Rice's Exit to Eden: it's all in the voice.9. Open your book to any page and tell us what is happening:
No surprise: I opened Safe Word, the sequel to Carrie's Story and my personal favorite of the two books, to the passage I most like to read out loud, which takes place after Carrie's been singing (too loudly) in the bathtub, and Jonathan's been very amused to hear her:
Of course, you always pay for it, don’t you [Carrie says]. You get out of the bathtub or shower, you see the other person’s amused face, and you realize just how loudly you were belting out your song in there.
“Nice selection.” He grinned... “Come back to bed,” he added. “I lied before. I want your mouth too.”
I’d forgotten how devastating I found that little phrase. I want. Well, it was more than a phrase, after all—it was, as I could have told you at nine years old, a complete sentence, the verb sweetly agreeing with the subject in number. Number? One. Just him, his declarative, subjective singularity—taut, swollen, urgent. I want. Tense: the present. Oh yes, very tense, and very present. A simple sentence, wanting to grow, to complexify, its predicate demanding its object—give it its object.Your mouth. And I opened my mouth, and he pulled my head down on him, hard. Oh, and I want you. I want you. To want it. To want me. It. Dissolve. Drown in the ambiguity.
10. What is next for you as a writer?
No promises. But if I could tell you all what happens next for Carrie, I'd be a very happy writer.
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