CONTENTS
There are many reasons why an author chooses to write a book. Perhaps, like me, theyre being paid a lot of money to write it. Or perhaps... nope, thats all I can think of. The good people at HarperCollins did gently hint that I should make this book more commercial, so I had to ask myself about the nature of whats popular in our culture. What do people really want? What would we hope to be offered by a book if we were being completely honest? Which is why I started writing the book you now hold in your hands. A crime porno.
The appeal for me was simple. How hard can it be to write a thousand words of porn every day? I probably text a thousand words of porn a day. The real problem was not only writing porn and letting the whole thing descend into a kaleidoscope of mouths and limbs and cocks and mouths and cocks. Cocks. And tits.
Hence crime. Ive never met anyone who doesnt like a little vicarious contact with crime: from teenagers killing prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto as a bit of light-hearted escapism from their actual sex lives, to the talcum-powder market foaming their knickers at Daily Mail headlines. The appeal is complex but, for whatever reason, it excites us to hear about some cunt getting killed.
My teenage sexual awakening happened long before the internet. I used to hang out at my local library and scour thrillers for sex. Id skim the sort of doorstoppers youd find on your uncles bookshelf for words like grasped and thrust. Occasionally looking up to stare slack mouthed at real women trying to borrow books, I rejected the opportunity for precocious learning and memorised reams of disjointed encounters between guilt-ridden adulterers, mercenaries and whores, and even the desperate couplings of a Southern slave plantation. Perhaps this has affected my adult life. Ive spent this speeding disinterestedly through the bits central to the narrative, desperately looking forward to the occasional sexual episodes, which I havent fully understood.
So part of me imagines this book hitting the Scottish library system, and some wee Wifi-less schoolboy in Penicuik having his aching balls blown off by this filthy lightning bolt of premeditated degradation. Or some guy getting his teenage daughter it as a present, because he remembers me from Mock of the Week. Merry Christmas, love!
This will be the burning bible of teenage Britain; a suppressed memory; a limping man in a wooden mask announcing with a shriek that he is the only guest of your surprise birthday party; an uncomfortable evening at the launch of a Muslim breakfast cereal; walking into a bar where a pub quiz hosts questions about your private life are met with general laughter and the harsh metallic bleat of a deer; a sore arse; your dog returning home with a swear word shaved into its side. This book will replicate almost exactly the experience of being a guy who gets raped just after getting the all-clear from prostate cancer and, as the rapist says how tight he is, he realises the cancers back; it will be a jeering portal into a new dimension of Desperate Iniquity.
Well, I suppose, to be entirely accurate, I sent HarperCollins the outline of a crime porno and they told me to fuck off. Instead, they asked me to produce what you hold in your hands. I was asked to deliver a humorous topical Christmas book, the sort of thing that raises a wry eyebrow at the news. A Jeremy Clarkson-style slab of bouncy opinion that, with the right cover, might sell well in train stations.
However, they did say that the introduction wasnt too important and I could maybe let loose a little there. Most people skip the introduction, and half the people who get a book in a train station never read the fucking thing. So for the rest of the introduction I want you to imagine that youre reading a crime novel. A crime novel in which many of the leads the investigator pursues seem to end in almost pointlessly graphic sex scenes.
The taxi pulls up by a little boxy end of terrace. After this, its all just countryside; after the street lamp on the corner, theres nothing. I pay the cabbie and get out with her. She turns round as if suddenly aware of the impropriety, silhouetted with her deelie-boppers in the dusk, more like a stag at bay than a hen returning from her own hen night. Theres a long, awkward pause.
I find myself thinking that seduction is just being able to think of something to say at a moment like this. Something that isnt a terrifying indication of how badly you want to fuck. I cant think of anything.
I grip her firmly by the back of the neck and her mouth opens slowly under mine. She pulls my bottom lip gently between her teeth, then breaks off and walks abruptly up to the door.
Night, night! she laughs, way too loud, and I wonder if she might be drunk after all. Ive followed her step for step and when she twists to say goodbye to me at the door Im actually right behind her, kissing down hard on the back of her neck, her shoulder.
Oh dear, oh dear, she chides, turning in my arms to push her mouth into my chest at the open top button of my shirt. Im holding her by her hip under her jacket and I push my fingers up inside her T-shirt to her bra, her nipple stiffening under my hand. She runs her hand down my chest till she reaches my belt, then, thank fuck, down to where my hard-on is straining through my trousers.
I cant. My fiancs inside...
Oh, fuck.
Hell be waiting up for me, she declares in a stage whisper, looking off towards the road with a flicker of annoyance crossing her face.
Part of me knows that the moment has passed but then a wee voice in me thinks that if it had passed shed be gone. I kiss her hard on the lips and I can see the surprise in her eyes as I lift her up with a soft thump against the door, her head bumping gently against the little square of dimpled glass at the top, and I start pushing her skirt up. I keep expecting her to tell me to stop but it doesnt come, and I just keep pushing. Shes running her tongue along my top lip as my fingers reach the top of her knickers, I tug at her tights, and everything just slides over her little bum surprisingly easily.
A light comes on in the house. Not the hall but back in there somewhere. Im expecting We shouldnt be doing this... at any moment, but Ive got my cock out now and as I push up against her I suddenly have her full attention again. Ive got my hand on my cock and Im trying to guide it in, shes looking out to the road anxiously, which is odd when we can hear her fianc moving about inside, but shes slippery to the touch, and just by pushing up from my legs Im suddenly in her and shes biting into my shoulder as her deelie boppers start to rattle gently against the door.
Im slipping it in and out of her, up through the bustle of her skirt, going as slowly as I can bear. The cold on the outstroke makes me aware of how wet my dick is getting between her legs. Suddenly the light goes on in her hall and I can hear someone shouting, indistinctly, like theyre way back at the far end. Maybe her fianc thinks shes just pissed and trying to find her keys, or... fuck it, who cares, Im sick of worrying about other people. I can hear him in there, like hes moving towards the door, maybe just trying to work out whats going on. He says something, hes quite close now, but he sounds drunk and I cant make it out, and Im fucking busy here, to be honest.
The shouting gets louder, he sounds drunk or something, an unhappy blah blah blah. She looks back anxiously and then wraps her legs round me really tight, suddenly moving up higher. Im just holding her now and shes lost it, pumping her hips like a fucking jockey or something. I hear footsteps coming down the hall but its too late because shes coming hard all over my dick, a gasp of warm breath steams up my glasses and her unmistakable loud moan breaks the silence of the night. This gets me right there and, as I start to shoot, I force open the letterbox awkwardly with my fingers and blast a load into their hallway