Picking up a BDSM novel is uncommon for us. This is not a
genre that appeals to us or even one where we can understand the characters
even slightly. This one ensures that we don’t venture into that genre ever
again.
Mickey transcribes music and sometimes plays piano as one of
the unseen back up musicians in the pit. She has idolised Helen Robins,
a famous jazz pianist forever. When she gets an opportunity to actually play,
albeit invisibly, in one of Helen’s shows, she is thrilled. At the after-party,
Helen offers Mickey a transcribing job. Mickey completes it diligently and Helen
invites Mickey to New York (from Boston) to work with her for a few weeks
(months?). When Mickey starts working with Helen, she soon stumbles upon an
unexpected scene which shakes her but also arouses her. Immediately after,
Helen offers and Mickey accepts a BDSM relationship.
This book is intense in its depiction of sadism, bondage and
dominance. From what we know, there is a lot more discussion (than shown in
this book) around the rules of engagement between the parties before they get
into this kind of a relationship/lifestyle. A lot of it felt like plain cruelty
and torture to us and we just had to
abandon this book. This far surpasses the BDSM benchmark set for us by The Story of L. Couple of other BDSM
books that we could read without totally cringing were Ticket to Love and At Her Feet (though the ‘mommy’ aspect in this put us off). So far the one BDSM
book that we’ve enjoyed has been Never Knew Until You – call it BSDM 101, but that is just about how much we can
really take.
