Ivory Tower by Lace Daltyn

questions, to interrupt me and ask.”
    She got through her introduction and several key points
before finally hitting on the thing that was most important to her when it came
to crafting stories. “Beyond anything else, writing eroticism isn’t all about
the sex.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense.” A woman who’d been taking
fervent notes interrupted her presentation. “With an erotic story, everyone
says you should start and end in the bedroom.”
    “You should start and end with them thinking about the
bedroom. Thinking about each other. Writing hot isn’t so much about the act...”
The chatter in the room stopped her for a moment. “Yes, okay, it’s partially
about the act. But it’s mostly about how your characters are treated, about how
they feel. And about what they learn about themselves in the process. It’s truly
about the emotion.”
    Jenna watched a blush infuse the woman’s cheeks. “How do
you have them thinking about sex all the time and still make it emotional? It
feels like it’s all about body parts. I’m just trying to understand how you
start a book with sex, yet get the reader invested in the character’s lives and
growth?”
    Jenna realized she wasn’t giving these women enough of a
starting point. She glanced down at her workshop notes, then shoved them aside.
She waved her hands in a circular motion to the audience. “Here’s what you do.
You set the stage with emotion. You write the sex, then you go back and layer
in more emotion.”
    Taking a sip of water, she continued. “So start off with
how she’s feeling. Or he. Either way. They both are in a passionate mood and
attracted to each other, right? At least, they’d better be.”
    A chuckle rumbled through the audience.
    “I tell you what. Let’s try an exercise. Someone give me an
opening line for a story. Not for a scene, but for the whole book.”
    A woman in the back with a T-shirt that read, “Be careful
or you’ll be in my next book,” was the first to volunteer. “It was a dark and
stormy night.”
    “Really? I’ve got a room full of writers here and that’s
the opening line you give me?”
    Everyone laughed, but no other offerings were forthcoming.
    “All right.” Jenna held up her hands again. “Let’s go with
that opening.” She took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts. Having never
read any of her own scenes aloud, the idea of inventing one, in front of a
group of, well, anybody, kicked her stage fright into high gear.
    “It was a dark and...” Her voice broke, so she cleared her
throat with another sip of water and tried again.
    It was a dark and
stormy night, a perfect match for Delilah’s mood. She stared out the window at
the heavy summer rainfall. After a long day spent alone cataloguing the
belongings of the old mansion, an edgy tension coiled her muscles into tight
knots. The humidity made the warmth oppressive. Delilah pulled her hair up and
held it in place on her head with both hands, seeking a coolness that eluded
her.
    Even worse, she
was damp with a need she couldn’t define. Had been all day. It was as if the
house had cocooned her in a sensual haze. These feelings hadn’t stirred since...
    Jenna raised an eyebrow to the room of still and attentive
women, warming to her subject.
    The touch on her
neck was feather-light, like lips caressing her. Delilah moaned. An echoing
sigh pulled her back against a solid chest as hands cupped her breasts like
cherished possessions.
    She heard a murmur,
like a man’s whisper carried by the wind. Had it been her own? Gentle kneading
tightened her nipples to painful points, even through the damp cloth of her t-shirt. The movements were so careful, so designed to
please her that she felt beloved. More so than she ever had before.
    A hand slid
underneath her shirt and drifted toward her breasts. The front clasp of her bra
released and the lacy material abraded tips already aching with a need that
drove straight past her stomach to her wet