Here’s the pic that inspired the story.
Can’t you almost see her sash and tiara as she poses in her cage? When I saw this image I thought “Beauty pageant contestant in a cage … what can I do with that?” I thought what I’d do was write a short story or a novella. Instead I wrote a novel. Happens sometimes.
Basically this is a very familiar story from erotica: a billionaire falls for a beautiful woman and kidnaps her and rapes her and makes her his sex slave, then they fall in love and live happily ever after. Honestly, even in romance days before erotica they had “bodice rippers” that were basically about powerful men raping helpless women and then the two of them fall in love. It’s a very common theme in romances.
Generally the darker aspects of these stories are glossed over. There’s very little consideration given to the possibility that the woman will be killed. But my heroine has seen enough Lifetime movies to know that a possible outcome to being kidnapped, raped and held captive for more rape, is being found dead in a ditch or a pond later. In order to deal with her captor, she has to figure out what’s going on with him psychologically. Is he a whacko who might kill her at any moment or a normal man who can be reasoned with?
At the same time, she has to deal with her own feelings, as she discovers she’s a natural submissive who likes being bound and fucked. She also kind of likes being raped. This is all new stuff to her, but being psychologically and socially grounded, Stephanie’s able to deal with that fairly easily.
I also give James’ psychology some attention. Billionaires have become a cliché in romances. To make James fresh I didn’t go with the tragic, brooding typecasting that’s normal for billionaire main characters in a romance. Instead, I made James brilliant and highly intelligent about math and money and sex, and almost completely clueless in other ways. I also got a chance to work a little socialist propaganda into the story, showing how being a financial speculator, working with amoral people and companies in an amoral capitalist system that sees all laws, rules, regulations and morals as just barriers to be worked around, worked through or simply broken in the quest to make more money, eventually corrupts the mind and soul of a financier.
And of course the whole point of this for many readers is going to be the rape and sexual bondage scenes, and I went full-bore on those, too. Setting up the conflict as strongly as I did, I was able to write some really strong rape scenes, with powerful emotions and some imaginative sex toys. James with his sexual expertise and mildly obsessive approach to sexual bondage, has all the toys and all the techniques, and Stephanie is brand new to them (though she’s not new to sex). I had the opportunity to write some powerful sex scenes, and I did. What’s more they fit right in with the psychological elements of my story.
I think the whole novel came together very well, with the psychological, social and sexual themes intertwining nicely. I hope you think so, too. That said, here’s da blurb:
When Stephanie Ann Steckler didn’t win anything at the Miss Grits Beauty Pageant, she broke down crying. This was of course very wrong. In beauty pageants, only the winners cry. Losers are expected to smile.
Texas billionaire James Pugh liked to have football games, cycling events and beauty pageants on in the background while he did the intense financial speculation that made him his billions. And when he saw Stephanie crying in the background as the winners were crowned, she stole his heart.
James, an oligarch and an alpha male, was accustomed to taking what he liked when he wanted it. When Stephanie stole his heart, he abducted Stephanie’s entire body and introduced her to the world of bondage and forced sex slavery. Her reaction surprised her. And James’ reaction to getting to know Stephanie surprised him. Then Stephanie surprised him in other ways, and James surprised her in other ways. Nothing went the way either of them thought it would or feared it might.
James thought he was a Master of the Universe, but in Stephanie, he might just have found his match. Stephanie, who thought she was average and normal, discovered she was neither of these things. Will their relationship survive its very rocky beginnings and sail into the sunset?
You’ll have to read the story to find out.
This 45,000 word novel is a contemporary erotic romance featuring an alpha male hero, a submissive heroine and a happily ever after.
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